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diff --git a/old/15701-8.txt b/old/15701-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f8f6e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/15701-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13907 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund +Burke, Vol. V. (of 12), by Edmund Burke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) + +Author: Edmund Burke + +Release Date: April 24, 2005 [EBook #15701] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURKE VOL 5 *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Susan Skinner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made +available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr + + + + + + + +THE WORKS + +OF + +THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +EDMUND BURKE + +IN TWELVE VOLUMES + +VOLUME THE FIFTH + +JOHN C. NIMMO + +14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. + +MDCCCLXXXVII + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. V. + +OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY, PARTICULARLY IN THE +LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT, 1793 1 + +PREFACE TO THE ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT TO HIS CONSTITUENTS; + WITH AN APPENDIX 65 + +LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., OCCASIONED BY A SPEECH MADE IN +THE HOUSE OF LORDS BY THE **** OF *******, IN THE DEBATE CONCERNING +LORD FITZWILLIAM, 1795 107 + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY 131 + +LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD ON THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS +PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, BY THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE +EARL OF LAUDERDALE, 1796 171 + +THREE LETTERS TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON THE PROPOSALS FOR +PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE. + + LETTER I. ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE 233 + + LETTER II. ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH + REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS 342 + + LETTER III. ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS + OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR + THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR 384 + + + + +OBSERVATIONS + +ON THE + +CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY + +PARTICULARLY IN THE + +LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. + +ADDRESSED TO + +THE DUKE OF PORTLAND AND LORD FITZWILLIAM. + +1793. + + + + +LETTER + +TO + +HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND. + + +MY DEAR LORD,--The paper which I take the liberty of sending to your +Grace was, for the greater part, written during the last session. A few +days after the prorogation some few observations were added. I was, +however, resolved to let it lie by me for a considerable time, that, on +viewing the matter at a proper distance, and when the sharpness of +recent impressions had been worn off, I might be better able to form a +just estimate of the value of my first opinions. + +I have just now read it over very coolly and deliberately. My latest +judgment owns my first sentiments and reasonings, in their full force, +with regard both to persons and things. + +During a period of four years, the state of the world, except for some +few and short intervals, has filled me with a good deal of serious +inquietude. I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism +as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as included in +Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. For this I have been +censured, as receiving through weakness, or spreading through fraud and +artifice, a false alarm. Whatever others may think of the matter, that +alarm, in my mind, is by no means quieted. The state of affairs +_abroad_ is not so much mended as to make me, for one, full of +confidence. At _home_, I see no abatement whatsoever in the zeal of the +partisans of Jacobinism towards their cause, nor any cessation in their +efforts to do mischief. What is doing by Lord Lauderdale on the first +scene of Lord George Gordon's actions, and in his spirit, is not +calculated to remove my apprehensions. They pursue their first object +with as much eagerness as ever, but with more dexterity. Under the +plausible name of peace, by which they delude or are deluded, they would +deliver us unarmed and defenceless to the confederation of Jacobins, +whose centre is indeed in France, but whose rays proceed in every +direction throughout the world. I understand that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, +has been lately very busy in spreading a disaffection to this war (which +we carry on for our being) in the country in which his property gives +him so great an influence. It is truly alarming to see so large a part +of the aristocratic interest engaged in the cause of the new species of +democracy, which is openly attacking or secretly undermining the system +of property by which mankind has hitherto been governed. But we are not +to delude ourselves. No man can be connected with a party which +professes publicly to admire or may be justly suspected of secretly +abetting this French Revolution, who must not be drawn into its vortex, +and become the instrument of its designs. + +What I have written is in the manner of apology. I have given it that +form, as being the most respectful; but I do not stand in need of any +apology for my principles, my sentiments, or my conduct. I wish the +paper I lay before your Grace to be considered as my most deliberate, +solemn, and even testamentary protest against the proceedings and +doctrines which have hitherto produced so much mischief in the world, +and which will infallibly produce more, and possibly greater. It is my +protest against the delusion by which some have been taught to look upon +this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place +or patronage, and to regard this Jacobin war abroad as a common war +about trade or territorial boundaries, or about a political balance of +power among rival or jealous states. Above all, it is my protest against +that mistake or perversion of sentiment by which they who agree with us +in our principles may on collateral considerations be regarded as +enemies, and those who, in this perilous crisis of all human affairs, +differ from us fundamentally and practically, as our best friends. Thus +persons of great importance may be made to turn the whole of their +influence to the destruction of their principles. + +I now make it my humble request to your Grace, that you will not give +any sort of answer to the paper I send, or to this letter, except barely +to let me know that you have received them. I even wish that at present +you may not read the paper which I transmit: lock it up in the drawer of +your library-table; and when a day of compulsory reflection comes, then +be pleased to turn to it. Then remember that your Grace had a true +friend, who had, comparatively with men of your description, a very +small interest in opposing the modern system of morality and policy, but +who, under every discouragement, was faithful to public duty and to +private friendship. I shall then probably be dead. I am sure I do not +wish to live to see such things. But whilst I do live, I shall pursue +the same course, although my merits should be taken for unpardonable +faults, and as such avenged, not only on myself, but on my posterity. + +Adieu, my dear Lord; and do me the justice to believe me ever, with most +sincere respect, veneration, and affectionate attachment, + +Your Grace's most faithful friend, + +And most obedient humble servant, + +EDMUND BURKE. + +BEACONSFIELD, Sept. 29, 1793. + + + + +OBSERVATIONS. + + +Approaching towards the close of a long period of public service, it is +natural I should be desirous to stand well (I hope I do stand tolerably +well) with that public which, with whatever fortune, I have endeavored +faithfully and zealously to serve. + +I am also not a little anxious for some place in the estimation of the +two persons to whom I address this paper. I have always acted with them, +and with those whom they represent. To my knowledge, I have not +deviated, no, not in the minutest point, from their opinions and +principles. Of late, without any alteration in their sentiments or in +mine, a difference of a very unusual nature, and which, under the +circumstances, it is not easy to describe, has arisen between us. + +In my journey with them through life, I met Mr. Fox in my road; and I +travelled with him very cheerfully, as long as he appeared to me to +pursue the same direction with those in whose company I set out. In the +latter stage of our progress a new scheme of liberty and equality was +produced in the world, which either dazzled his imagination, or was +suited to some new walks of ambition which were then opened to his view. +The whole frame and fashion of his politics appear to have suffered +about that time a very material alteration. It is about three years +since, in consequence of that extraordinary change, that, after a +pretty long preceding period of distance, coolness, and want of +confidence, if not total alienation on his part, a complete public +separation has been made between that gentleman and me. Until lately the +breach between us appeared reparable. I trusted that time and +reflection, and a decisive experience of the mischiefs which have flowed +from the proceedings and the system of France, on which our difference +had arisen, as well as the known sentiments of the best and wisest of +our common friends upon that subject, would have brought him to a safer +way of thinking. Several of his friends saw no security for keeping +things in a proper train after this excursion of his, but in the reunion +of the party on its old grounds, under the Duke of Portland. Mr. Fox, if +he pleased, might have been comprehended in that system, with the rank +and consideration to which his great talents entitle him, and indeed +must secure to him in any party arrangement that _could_ be made. The +Duke of Portland knows how much I wished for, and how earnestly I +labored that reunion, and upon terms that might every way be honorable +and advantageous to Mr. Fox. His conduct in the last session has +extinguished these hopes forever. + +Mr. Fox has lately published in print a defence of his conduct. On +taking into consideration that defence, a society of gentlemen, called +the Whig Club, thought proper to come to the following +resolution:--"That their confidence in Mr. Fox is confirmed, +strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him." + +To that resolution my two noble friends, the Duke of Portland and Lord +Fitzwilliam, have given their concurrence. + +The calumnies supposed in that resolution can be nothing else than the +objections taken to Mr. Fox's conduct in this session of Parliament; for +to them, and to them alone, the resolution refers. I am one of those who +have publicly and strongly urged those objections. I hope I shall be +thought only to do what is necessary to my justification, thus publicly, +solemnly, and heavily censured by those whom I most value and esteem, +when I firmly contend that the objections which I, with many others of +the friends to the Duke of Portland, have made to Mr. Fox's conduct, are +not _calumnies_, but founded on truth,--that they are not _few_, but +many,--and that they are not _light and trivial_, but, in a very high +degree, serious and important. + +That I may avoid the imputation of throwing out, even privately, any +loose, random imputations against the public conduct of a gentleman for +whom I once entertained a very warm affection, and whose abilities I +regard with the greatest admiration, I will put down, distinctly and +articulately, some of the matters of objection which I feel to his late +doctrines and proceedings, trusting that I shall be able to demonstrate +to the friends whose good opinion I would still cultivate, that not +levity, nor caprice, nor less defensible motives, but that very grave +reasons, influence my judgment. I think that the spirit of his late +proceedings is wholly alien to our national policy, and to the peace, to +the prosperity, and to the legal liberties of this nation, _according to +our ancient domestic and appropriated mode of holding them_. + +Viewing things in that light, my confidence in him is not increased, but +totally destroyed, by those proceedings. I cannot conceive it a matter +of honor or duty (but the direct contrary) in any member of Parliament +to continue systematic opposition for the purpose of putting government +under difficulties, until Mr. Fox (with all his present ideas) shall +have the principal direction of affairs placed in his hands, and until +the present body of administration (with their ideas and measures) is of +course overturned and dissolved. + +To come to particulars. + +1. The laws and Constitution of the kingdom intrust the sole and +exclusive right of treating with foreign potentates to the king. This is +an undisputed part of the legal prerogative of the crown. However, +notwithstanding this, Mr. Fox, without the knowledge or participation of +any one person in the House of Commons, with whom he was bound by every +party principle, in matters of delicacy and importance, confidentially +to communicate, thought proper to send Mr. Adair, as his representative, +and with his cipher, to St. Petersburg, there to frustrate the objects +for which the minister from the crown was authorized to treat. He +succeeded in this his design, and did actually frustrate the king's +minister in some of the objects of his negotiation. + +This proceeding of Mr. Fox does not (as I conceive) amount to absolute +high treason,--Russia, though on bad terms, not having been then +declaredly at war with this kingdom. But such a proceeding is in law not +very remote from that offence, and is undoubtedly a most +unconstitutional act, and an high treasonable misdemeanor. + +The legitimate and sure mode of communication between this nation and +foreign powers is rendered uncertain, precarious, and treacherous, by +being divided into two channels,--one with the government, one with the +head of a party in opposition to that government; by which means the +foreign powers can never be assured of the real authority or validity of +any public transaction whatsoever. + +On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that +time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an individual +an influence directly against the government of his country, in a +foreign court, has made a highway into England for the intrigues of +foreign courts in our affairs. This is a sore evil,--an evil from which, +before this time, England was more free than any other nation. Nothing +can preserve us from that evil--which connects cabinet factions abroad +with popular factions here--but the keeping sacred the crown as the only +channel of communication with every other nation. + +This proceeding of Mr. Fox has given a strong countenance and an +encouraging example to the doctrines and practices of the Revolution and +Constitutional Societies, and of other mischievous societies of that +description, who, without any legal authority, and even without any +corporate capacity, are in the habit of proposing, and, to the best of +their power, of forming, leagues and alliances with France. + +This proceeding, which ought to be reprobated on all the general +principles of government, is in a more narrow view of things not less +reprehensible. It tends to the prejudice of the whole of the Duke of +Portland's late party, by discrediting the principles upon which they +supported Mr. Fox in the Russian business, as if they of that party also +had proceeded in their Parliamentary opposition on the same mischievous +principles which actuated Mr. Fox in sending Mr. Adair on his embassy. + +2. Very soon after his sending this embassy to Russia, that is, in the +spring of 1792, a covenanting club or association was formed in London, +calling itself by the ambitious and invidious title of "_The Friends of +the People_." It was composed of many of Mr. Fox's own most intimate +personal and party friends, joined to a very considerable part of the +members of those mischievous associations called the Revolution Society +and the Constitutional Society. Mr. Fox must have been well apprised of +the progress of that society in every one of its steps, if not of the +very origin of it. I certainly was informed of both, who had no +connection with the design, directly or indirectly. His influence over +the persons who composed the leading part in that association was, and +is, unbounded. I hear that he expressed some disapprobation of this club +in one case, (that of Mr. St. John,) where his consent was formally +asked; yet he never attempted seriously to put a stop to the +association, or to disavow it, or to control, check, or modify it in any +way whatsoever. If he had pleased, without difficulty, he might have +suppressed it in its beginning. However, he did not only not suppress it +in its beginning, but encouraged it in every part of its progress, at +that particular time when Jacobin clubs (under the very same or similar +titles) were making such dreadful havoc in a country not thirty miles +from the coast of England, and when every motive of moral prudence +called for the discouragement of societies formed for the increase of +popular pretensions to power and direction. + +3. When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as +well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious +alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots, +he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and +conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule. He condemned and +vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation +issued by government on that occasion,--though he well knew that it had +passed through the Duke of Portland's hands, that it had received his +fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview +between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt. During the discussion of its +merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the +chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a +public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and +personally. On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I +presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of +Portland's friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of +the same description, have become separated from that time to this from +Mr. Fox's particular cabal,--very few of which cabal are, or ever have, +so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay +any respect to him or his opinions. + +4. At the beginning of this session, when the sober part of the nation +was a second time generally and justly alarmed at the progress of the +French arms on the Continent, and at the spreading of their horrid +principles and cabals in England, Mr. Fox did not (as had been usual in +cases of far less moment) call together any meeting of the Duke of +Portland's friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking +their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that +critical juncture. He concerted his measures (if with any persons at +all) with the friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves +Friends of the People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to +the Duke of Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my +opinion) all pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much +more to be considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of +Commons. This could not give much encouragement to those who had been +separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first +proclamation, to rejoin that party. + +5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the House +of Commons,--and not having consulted them, because he had reason to +know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly +disagreeable to them,--he represented the alarm, which was a second time +given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in which he +painted the alarms of the former year. He described those alarms in this +manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal and +far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the supposition of the +growth of a Jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the nation. As to +the danger from _abroad_, on the first day of the session he said little +or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with defending the +ruling factions in France, and with accusing the public councils of this +kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of the +people,--declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole +danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown. The +policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to the +general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France. To +counteract the alarm given by the progress of Jacobin arms and +principles, he endeavored to excite an opposite alarm concerning the +growth of the power of the crown. If that alarm should prevail, he knew +that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of +the Jacobin empire: because it is obvious that war does, in its very +nature, necessitate the Commons considerably to strengthen the hands of +government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terror, +we could have no war. + +6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed +all the evils which the public had suffered to the proclamation of the +preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of Portland's +own son, the Marquis of Tichfield, who had seconded the address on that +proclamation, and in presence of the Duke of Portland's brother, Lord +Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends and nearest +relations. + +7. On that day, that is, on the 13th of December, 1792, he proposed an +amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House, and +which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did stand +upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out the part +of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon the ground +of the objections which he took to the legality of calling together +Parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and +sophistical,) but he likewise struck out _that part which related to the +cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England_, although +their practices and correspondences were of public notoriety. Mr. Cooper +and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the Jacobins. These +ambassadors were received by them as British representatives. Other +deputations of English had been received at the bar of the National +Assembly. They had gone the length of giving supplies to the Jacobin +armies; and they, in return, had received promises of military +assistance to forward their designs in England. A regular correspondence +for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies +in London with a great number of the Jacobin societies in France. This +correspondence had also for its object the pretended improvement of the +British Constitution. What is the most remarkable, and by much the more +mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck +out everything in the address which _related to the tokens of ambition +given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and +dangerous growth of her power upon every side_; and instead of all those +weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of +Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give +assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the +common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on +the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together, +and an engagement to inquire into that conduct. + +8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project +for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this +nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the Jacobin +societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would +have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two +proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened +and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications +would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been +authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea +or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same +time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest +of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot, +to France, just on the point of invading that republic. A general +consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with +every other power, except France, would have been forever rendered +impracticable to us. I think it impossible for any man, who regards the +dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of +mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox's proceedings in that tremendous crisis +of all human affairs. + +9. Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprised of the general dislike of +the Duke of Portland's friends to this conduct. Some of those who had +even voted with him, the day after their vote, expressed their +abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and +their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was +made; yet the very next day, that is, on Friday, the 14th of December, +he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same +principles, a _second_ time. + +10. Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a _third_ +time brought on another proposition in the same spirit, and pursued it +with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday: a thing not +known in Parliament for many years. + +11. In all these motions and debates he wholly departed from all the +political principles relative to France (considered merely as a state, +and independent of its Jacobin form of government) which had hitherto +been held fundamental in this country, and which he had himself held +more strongly than any man in Parliament. He at that time studiously +separated himself from those to whose sentiments he used to profess no +small regard, although those sentiments were publicly declared. I had +then no concern in the party, having been, for some time, with all +outrage, excluded from it; but, on general principles, I must say that a +person who assumes to be leader of a party composed of freemen and of +gentlemen ought to pay some degree of deference to their feelings, and +even to their prejudices. He ought to have some degree of management for +their credit and influence in their country. He showed so very little of +this delicacy, that he compared the alarm raised in the minds of the +Duke of Portland's party, (which was his own,) an alarm in which they +sympathized with the greater part of the nation, to the panic produced +by the pretended Popish plot in the reign of Charles the +Second,--describing it to be, as that was, a contrivance of knaves, and +believed only by well-meaning dupes and madmen. + +12. The Monday following (the 17th of December) he pursued the same +conduct. The means used in England to coöperate with the Jacobin army in +politics agreed with their modes of proceeding: I allude to the +mischievous writings circulated with much industry and success, as well +as the seditious clubs, which at that time added not a little to the +alarm taken by observing and well-informed men. The writings and the +clubs were two evils which marched together. Mr. Fox discovered the +greatest possible disposition to favor and countenance the one as well +as the other of these two grand instruments of the French system. He +would hardly consider any political writing whatsoever as a libel, or as +a fit object of prosecution. At a time in which the press has been the +grand instrument of the subversion of order, of morals, of religion, +and, I may say, of human society itself, to carry the doctrines of its +liberty higher than ever it has been known by its most extravagant +assertors, even in France, gave occasion to very serious reflections. +Mr. Fox treated the associations for prosecuting these libels as tending +to prevent the improvement of the human mind, and as a mobbish tyranny. +He thought proper to compare them with the riotous assemblies of Lord +George Gordon in 1780, declaring that he had advised his friends in +Westminster to sign the associations, whether they agreed to them or +not, in order that they might avoid destruction to their persons or +their houses, or a desertion of their shops. This insidious advice +tended to confound those who wished well to the object of the +association with the seditious against whom the association was +directed. By this stratagem, the confederacy intended for preserving the +British Constitution and the public peace would be wholly defeated. The +magistrates, utterly incapable of distinguishing the friends from the +enemies of order, would in vain look for support, when they stood in the +greatest need of it. + +13. Mr. Fox's whole conduct, on this occasion, was without example. The +very morning after these violent declamations in the House of Commons +against the association, (that is, on Tuesday, the 18th,) he went +himself to a meeting of St. George's parish, and there signed an +association of the nature and tendency of those he had the night before +so vehemently condemned; and several of his particular and most intimate +friends, inhabitants of that parish, attended and signed along with him. + +14. Immediately after this extraordinary step, and in order perfectly to +defeat the ends of that association against Jacobin publications, +(which, contrary to his opinions, he had promoted and signed,) a +mischievous society was formed under his auspices, called _The Friends +of the Liberty of the Press_. Their title groundlessly insinuated that +the freedom of the press had lately suffered, or was now threatened +with, some violation. This society was only, in reality, another +modification of the society calling itself _The Friends of the People_, +which in the preceding summer had caused so much uneasiness in the Duke +of Portland's mind, and in the minds of several of his friends. This new +society was composed of many, if not most, of the members of the club of +the Friends of the People, with the addition of a vast multitude of +others (such as Mr. Horne Tooke) of the worst and most seditious +dispositions that could be found in the whole kingdom. In the first +meeting of this club Mr. Erskine took the lead, and directly (without +any disavowal ever since on Mr. Fox's part) _made use of his name and +authority in favor of its formation and purposes_. In the same meeting +Mr. Erskine had thanks for his defence of Paine, which amounted to a +complete avowal of that Jacobin incendiary; else it is impossible to +know how Mr. Erskine should have deserved such marked applauses for +acting merely as a lawyer for his fee, in the ordinary course of his +profession. + +15. Indeed, Mr. Fox appeared the general patron of all such persons and +proceedings. When Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and other persons, for +practices of the most dangerous kind, in Paris and in London, were +removed from the King's Guards, Mr. Fox took occasion in the House of +Commons heavily to censure that act, as unjust and oppressive, and +tending to make officers bad citizens. There were few, however, who did +not call for some such measures on the part of government, as of +absolute necessity for the king's personal safety, as well as that of +the public; and nothing but the mistaken lenity, with which such +practices were rather discountenanced than punished, could possibly +deserve reprehension in what was done with regard to those gentlemen. + +16. Mr. Fox regularly and systematically, and with a diligence long +unusual to him, did everything he could to countenance the same +principle of fraternity and connection with the Jacobins abroad, and the +National Convention of France, for which these officers had been removed +from the Guards. For when a bill (feeble and lax, indeed, and far short +of the vigor required by the conjuncture) was brought in for removing +out of the kingdom the emissaries of France, Mr. Fox opposed it with all +his might. He pursued a vehement and detailed opposition to it through +all its stages, describing it as a measure contrary to the existing +treaties between Great Britain and France, as a violation of the law of +nations, and as an outrage on the Great Charter itself. + +17. In the same manner, and with the same heat, he opposed a bill which +(though awkward and inartificial in its construction) was right and wise +in its principle, and was precedented in the best times, and absolutely +necessary at that juncture: I mean the Traitorous Correspondence Bill. +By these means the enemy, rendered infinitely dangerous by the links of +real faction and pretended commerce, would have been (had Mr. Fox +succeeded) enabled to carry on the war against us by our own resources. +For this purpose that enemy would have had his agents and traitors in +the midst of us. + +18. When at length war was actually declared by the usurpers in France +against this kingdom, and declared whilst they were pretending a +negotiation through Dumouriez with Lord Auckland, Mr. Fox still +continued, through the whole of the proceedings, to discredit the +national honor and justice, and to throw the entire blame of the war on +Parliament, and on his own country, as acting with violence, +haughtiness, and want of equity. He frequently asserted, both at the +time and ever since, that the war, though declared by France, was +provoked by us, and that it was wholly unnecessary and fundamentally +unjust. + +19. He has lost no opportunity of railing, in the most virulent manner +and in the most unmeasured language, at every foreign power with whom we +could now, or at any time, contract any useful or effectual alliance +against France,--declaring that he hoped no alliance with those powers +was made, or was in a train of being made.[1] He always expressed +himself with the utmost horror concerning such alliances. So did all +his phalanx. Mr. Sheridan in particular, after one of his invectives +against those powers, sitting by him, said, with manifest marks of his +approbation, that, if we must go to war, he had rather go to war alone +than with such allies. + +20. Immediately after the French declaration of war against us, +Parliament addressed the king in support of the war against them, as +just and necessary, and provoked, as well as formally declared against +Great Britain. He did not divide the House upon this measure; yet he +immediately followed this our solemn Parliamentary engagement to the +king with a motion proposing a set of resolutions, the effect of which +was, that the two Houses were to load themselves with every kind of +reproach for having made the address which they had just carried to the +throne. He commenced this long string of criminatory resolutions against +his country (if King, Lords, and Commons of Great Britain, and a decided +majority without doors are his country) _with a declaration against +intermeddling in the interior concerns of France_. The purport of this +resolution of non-interference is a thing unexampled in the history of +the world, when one nation has been actually at war with another. The +best writers on the law of nations give no sort of countenance to his +doctrine of non-interference, in the extent and manner in which he used +it, _even when there is no war_. When the war exists, not one authority +is against it in all its latitude. His doctrine is equally contrary to +the enemy's uniform practice, who, whether in peace or in war, makes it +his great aim not only to change the government, but to make an entire +revolution in the whole of the social order in every country. + +The object of the last of this extraordinary string of resolutions moved +by Mr. Fox was to advise the crown not to enter into such an engagement +with any foreign power so as to hinder us from making a _separate_ peace +with France, or which might tend to enable any of those powers to +introduce a government in that country other than such as those persons +whom he calls the people of France shall choose to establish. In short, +the whole of these resolutions appeared to have but one drift, namely, +the sacrifice of our own domestic dignity and safety, and the +independency of Europe, to the support of this strange mixture of +anarchy and tyranny which prevails in France, and which Mr. Fox and his +party were pleased to call a government. The immediate consequence of +these measures was (by an example the ill effects of which on the whole +world are not to be calculated) to secure the robbers of the innocent +nobility, gentry, and ecclesiastics of France in the enjoyment of the +spoil they have made of the estates, houses, and goods of their +fellow-citizens. + +21. Not satisfied with moving these resolutions, tending to confirm this +horrible tyranny and robbery, and with actually dividing the House on +the first of the long string which they composed, in a few days +afterwards he encouraged and supported Mr. Grey in producing the very +same string in a new form, and in moving, under the shape of an address +of Parliament to the crown, another virulent libel on all its own +proceedings in this session, in which not only all the ground of the +resolutions was again travelled over, but much new inflammatory matter +was introduced. In particular, a charge was made, that Great Britain had +not interposed to prevent the last partition of Poland. On this head +the party dwelt very largely and very vehemently. Mr. Fox's intention, +in the choice of this extraordinary topic, was evident enough. He well +knows two things: first, that no wise or honest man can approve of that +partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating great mischief +from it to all countries at some future time; secondly, he knows quite +as well, that, let our opinions on that partition be what they will, +England, by itself, is not in a situation to afford to Poland any +assistance whatsoever. The purpose of the introduction of Polish +politics into this discussion was not for the sake of Poland; it was to +throw an odium upon those who are obliged to decline the cause of +justice from their impossibility of supporting a cause which they +approve: as if we, who think more strongly on this subject than he does, +were of a party against Poland, because we are obliged to act with some +of the authors of that injustice against our common enemy, France. But +the great and leading purpose of this introduction of Poland into the +debates on the French war was to divert the public attention from what +was in our power, that is, from a steady coöperation against France, to +a quarrel with the allies for the sake of a Polish war, which, for any +useful purpose to Poland, he knew it was out of our power to make. If +England can touch Poland ever so remotely, it must be through the medium +of alliances. But by attacking all the combined powers together for +their supposed unjust aggression upon France, he bound them by a now +common interest not separately to join England for the rescue of Poland. +The proposition could only mean to do what all the writers of his party +in the Morning Chronicle have aimed at persuading the public to, through +the whole of the last autumn and winter, and to this hour: that is, to +an alliance with the Jacobins of France, for the pretended purpose of +succoring Poland. This curious project would leave to Great Britain no +other ally in all Europe except its old enemy, France. + +22. Mr. Fox, after the first day's discussion on the question for the +address, was at length driven to admit (to admit rather than to urge, +and that very faintly) that France had discovered ambitious views, which +none of his partisans, that I recollect, (Mr. Sheridan excepted,) did, +however, either urge or admit. What is remarkable enough, all the points +admitted against the Jacobins were brought to bear in their favor as +much as those in which they were defended. For when Mr. Fox admitted +that the conduct of the Jacobins did discover ambition, he always ended +his admission of their ambitious views by an apology for them, insisting +that the universally hostile disposition shown to them rendered their +ambition a sort of defensive policy. Thus, on whatever roads he +travelled, they all terminated in recommending a recognition of their +pretended republic, and in the plan of sending an ambassador to it. This +was the burden of all his song:--"Everything which we could reasonably +hope from war would be obtained from treaty." It is to be observed, +however, that, in all these debates, Mr. Fox never once stated to the +House upon what ground it was he conceived that all the objects of the +French system of united fanaticism and ambition would instantly be given +up, whenever England should think fit to propose a treaty. On proposing +so strange a recognition and so humiliating an embassy as he moved, he +was bound to produce his authority, if any authority he had. He ought to +have done this the rather, because Le Brun, in his first propositions, +and in his answers to Lord Grenville, defended, _on principle, not on +temporary convenience_, everything which was objected to France, and +showed not the smallest disposition to give up any one of the points in +discussion. Mr. Fox must also have known that the Convention had passed +to the order of the day, on a proposition to give some sort of +explanation or modification to the hostile decree of the 19th of +November for exciting insurrections in all countries,--a decree known to +be peculiarly pointed at Great Britain. The whole proceeding of the +French administration was the most remote that could be imagined from +furnishing any indication of a pacific disposition: for at the very time +in which it was pretended that the Jacobins entertained those boasted +pacific intentions, at the very time in which Mr. Fox was urging a +treaty with them, not content with refusing a modification of the decree +for insurrections, they published their ever-memorable decree of the +15th of December, 1792, for disorganizing every country in Europe into +which they should on any occasion set their foot; and on the 25th and +the 30th of the same month, they solemnly, and, on the last of these +days, practically, confirmed that decree. + +23. But Mr. Fox had himself taken good care, in the negotiation he +proposed, that France should not be obliged to make any very great +concessions to her presumed moderation: for he had laid down one +general, comprehensive rule, with him (as he said) constant and +inviolable. This rule, in fact, would not only have left to the faction +in France all the property and power they had usurped at home, but most, +if not all, of the conquests which by their atrocious perfidy and +violence they had made abroad. The principle laid down by Mr. Fox is +this,--"_That every state, in the conclusion of a war, has a right to +avail itself of its conquests towards an indemnification_." This +principle (true or false) is totally contrary to the policy which this +country has pursued with France at various periods, particularly at the +Treaty of Ryswick, in the last century, and at the Treaty of +Aix-la-Chapelle, in this. Whatever the merits of his rule may be in the +eyes of neutral judges, it is a rule which no statesman before him ever +laid down in favor of the adverse power with whom he was to negotiate. +The adverse party himself may safely be trusted to take care of his +_own_ aggrandizement. But (as if the black boxes of the several parties +had been exchanged) Mr. Fox's English ambassador, by some odd mistake, +would find himself charged with the concerns of France. If we were to +leave France as she stood at the time when Mr. Fox proposed to treat +with her, that formidable power must have been infinitely strengthened, +and almost every other power in Europe as much weakened, by the +extraordinary basis which he laid for a treaty. For Avignon must go from +the Pope; Savoy (at least) from the King of Sardinia, if not Nice. +Liege, Mentz, Salm, Deux-Ponts, and Basle must be separated from +Germany. On this side of the Rhine, Liege (at least) must be lost to the +Empire, and added to France. Mr. Fox's general principle fully covered +all this. How much of these territories came within his rule he never +attempted to define. He kept a profound silence as to Germany. As to +the Netherlands he was something more explicit. He said (if I recollect +right) that France on that side might expect something towards +strengthening her frontier. As to the remaining parts of the +Netherlands, which he supposed France might consent to surrender, he +went so far as to declare that England ought not to permit the Emperor +to be repossessed of the remainder of the ten Provinces, but that _the +people_ should choose such a form of independent government as they +liked. This proposition of Mr. Fox was just the arrangement which the +usurpation in France had all along proposed to make. As the +circumstances were at that time, and have been ever since, his +proposition fully indicated what government the Flemings _must_ have in +the stated extent of what was left to them. A government so set up in +the Netherlands, whether compulsory, or by the choice of the +_sans-culottes_, (who he well knew were to be the real electors, and the +sole electors,) in whatever name it was to exist, must evidently depend +for its existence, as it had done for its original formation, on France. +In reality, it must have ended in that point to which, piece by piece, +the French were then actually bringing all the Netherlands,--that is, an +incorporation with France as a body of new Departments, just as Savoy +and Liege and the rest of their pretended independent popular +sovereignties have been united to their republic. Such an arrangement +must have destroyed Austria; it must have left Holland always at the +mercy of France; it must totally and forever cut off all political +communication between England and the Continent. Such must have been the +situation of Europe, according to Mr. Fox's system of politics, however +laudable his personal motives may have been in proposing so complete a +change in the whole system of Great Britain with regard to all the +Continental powers. + +24. After it had been generally supposed that all public business was +over for the session, and that Mr. Fox had exhausted all the modes of +pressing this French scheme, he thought proper to take a step beyond +every expectation, and which demonstrated his wonderful eagerness and +perseverance in his cause, as well as the nature and true character of +the cause itself. This step was taken by Mr. Fox immediately after his +giving his assent to the grant of supply voted to him by Mr. Serjeant +Adair and a committee of gentlemen who assumed to themselves to act in +the name of the public. In the instrument of his acceptance of this +grant, Mr. Fox took occasion to assure them that he would always +persevere _in the same conduct_ which had procured to him so honorable a +mark of the public approbation. He was as good as his word. + +25. It was not long before an opportunity was found, or made, for +proving the sincerity of his professions, and demonstrating his +gratitude to those who had given public and unequivocal marks of their +approbation of his late conduct. One of the most virulent of the Jacobin +faction, Mr. Gurney, a banker at Norwich, had all along distinguished +himself by his French politics. By the means of this gentleman, and of +his associates of the same description, one of the most insidious and +dangerous handbills that ever was seen had been circulated at Norwich +against the war, drawn up in an hypocritical tone of compassion for the +poor. This address to the populace of Norwich was to play in concert +with an address to Mr. Fox; it was signed by Mr. Gurney and the higher +part of the French fraternity in that town. In this paper Mr. Fox is +applauded for his conduct throughout the session, and requested, before +the prorogation, to make a motion for an immediate peace with France. + +26. Mr. Fox did not revoke to this suit: he readily and thankfully +undertook the task assigned to him. Not content, however, with merely +falling in with their wishes, he proposed a task on his part to the +gentlemen of Norwich, which was, _that they should move the people +without doors to petition against the war_. He said, that, without such +assistance, little good could be expected from anything he might attempt +within the walls of the House of Commons. In the mean time, to animate +his Norwich friends in their endeavors to besiege Parliament, he +snatched the first opportunity to give notice of a motion which he very +soon after made, namely, to address the crown to make peace with France. +The address was so worded as to coöperate with the handbill in bringing +forward matter calculated to inflame the manufacturers throughout the +kingdom. + +27. In support of his motion, he declaimed in the most virulent strain, +even beyond any of his former invectives, against every power with whom +we were then, and are now, acting against France. In the _moral_ forum +some of these powers certainly deserve all the ill he said of them; but +the _political_ effect aimed at, evidently, was to turn our indignation +from France, with whom we were at war, upon Russia, or Prussia, or +Austria, or Sardinia, or all of them together. In consequence of his +knowledge that we _could_ not effectually do _without_ them, and his +resolution that we _should_ not act _with_ them, he proposed, that, +having, as he asserted, "obtained the only avowed object of the war (the +evacuation of Holland) we ought to conclude an instant peace." + +28. Mr. Fox could not be ignorant of the mistaken basis upon which his +motion was grounded. He was not ignorant, that, though the attempt of +Dumouriez on Holland, (so very near succeeding,) and the navigation of +the Scheldt, (a part of the same piece,) were among the _immediate_ +causes, they were by no means the only causes, alleged for Parliament's +taking that offence at the proceedings of France, for which the Jacobins +were so prompt in declaring war upon this kingdom. Other full as weighty +causes had been alleged: they were,--1. The general overbearing and +desperate ambition of that faction; 2. Their actual attacks on every +nation in Europe; 3. Their usurpation of territories in the Empire with +the governments of which they had no pretence of quarrel; 4. Their +perpetual and irrevocable consolidation with their own dominions of +every territory of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of Italy, of which +they got a temporary possession; 5. The mischiefs attending the +prevalence of their system, which would make the success of their +ambitious designs a new and peculiar species of calamity in the world; +6. Their formal, public decrees, particularly those of the 19th of +November and 15th and 25th of December; 7. Their notorious attempts to +undermine the Constitution of this country; 8. Their public reception of +deputations of traitors for that direct purpose; 9. Their murder of +their sovereign, declared by most of the members of the Convention, who +spoke with their vote, (without a disavowal from any,) to be perpetrated +as an example to _all_ kings and a precedent for _all_ subjects to +follow. All these, and not the Scheldt alone, or the invasion of +Holland, were urged by the minister, and by Mr. Windham, by myself, and +by others who spoke in those debates, as causes for bringing France to a +sense of her wrong in the war which she declared against us. Mr. Fox +well knew that not one man argued for the necessity of a vigorous +resistance to France, who did not state the war as being for the very +existence of the social order here, and in every part of Europe,--who +did not state his opinion that this war was not at all a foreign war of +empire, but as much for our liberties, properties, laws, and religion, +and even more so, than any we had ever been engaged in. This was the war +which, according to Mr. Fox and Mr. Gurney, we were to abandon before +the enemy had felt in the slightest degree the impression of our arms. + +29. Had Mr. Fox's disgraceful proposal been complied with, this kingdom +would have been stained with a blot of perfidy hitherto without an +example in our history, and with far less excuse than any act of perfidy +which we find in the history of any other nation. The moment when, by +the incredible exertions of Austria, (very little through ours,) the +temporary deliverance of Holland (in effect our own deliverance) had +been achieved, he advised the House instantly to abandon her to that +very enemy from whose arms she had freed ourselves and the closest of +our allies. + +30. But we are not to be imposed on by forms of language. We must act on +the substance of things. To abandon Austria in this manner was to +abandon Holland itself. For suppose France, encouraged and strengthened +as she must have been by our treacherous desertion,--suppose France, I +say, to succeed against Austria, (as she had succeeded the very year +before,) England would, after its disarmament, have nothing in the world +but the inviolable faith of Jacobinism and the steady politics of +anarchy to depend upon, against France's renewing the very same attempts +upon Holland, and renewing them (considering what Holland was and is) +with much better prospects of success. Mr. Fox must have been well +aware, that, if we were to break with the greater Continental powers, +and particularly to come to a rupture with them, in the violent and +intemperate mode in which he would have made the breach, the defence of +Holland against a foreign enemy and a strong domestic faction must +hereafter rest solely upon England, without the chance of a single ally, +either on that or on any other occasion. So far as to the pretended sole +object of the war, which Mr. Fox supposed to be so completely obtained +(but which then was not at all, and at this day is not completely +obtained) as to leave us nothing else to do than to cultivate a +peaceful, quiet correspondence with those quiet, peaceable, and moderate +people, the Jacobins of France. + +31. To induce us to this, Mr. Fox labored hard to make it appear that +the powers with whom we acted were full as ambitious and as perfidious +as the French. This might be true as to _other_ nations. They had not, +however, been so to _us_ or to Holland. He produced no proof of active +ambition and ill faith against Austria. But supposing the combined +powers had been all thus faithless, and been all alike so, there was one +circumstance which made an essential difference between them and +France. I need not, therefore, be at the trouble of contesting this +point,--which, however, in this latitude, and as at all affecting Great +Britain and Holland, I deny utterly. Be it so. But the great monarchies +have it in their power to keep their faith, _if they please_, because +they are governments of established and recognized authority at home and +abroad. France had, in reality, no government. The very factions who +exercised power had no stability. The French Convention had no powers of +peace or war. Supposing the Convention to be free, (most assuredly it +was not,) they had shown no disposition to abandon their projects. +Though long driven out of Liege, it was not many days before Mr. Fox's +motion that they still continued to claim it as a country which their +principles of fraternity bound them to protect,--that is, to subdue and +to regulate at their pleasure. That party which Mr. Fox inclined most to +favor and trust, and from which he must have received his assurances, +(if any he did receive,) that is, the _Brissotins_, were then either +prisoners or fugitives. The party which prevailed over them (that of +Danton and Marat) was itself in a tottering condition, and was disowned +by a very great part of France. To say nothing of the royal party, who +were powerful and growing, and who had full as good a right to claim to +be the legitimate government as any of the Parisian factions with whom +he proposed to treat,--or rather, (as it seemed to me,) to surrender at +discretion. + +32. But when Mr. Fox began to come from his general hopes of the +moderation of the Jacobins to particulars, he put the case that they +might not perhaps be willing to surrender Savoy. He certainly was not +willing to contest that point with them, but plainly and explicitly (as +I understood him) proposed to let them keep it,--though he knew (or he +was much worse informed than he would be thought) that England had at +the very time agreed on the terms of a treaty with the King of Sardinia, +of which the recovery of Savoy was the _casus foederis_. In the teeth of +this treaty, Mr. Fox proposed a direct and most scandalous breach of our +faith, formally and recently given. But to surrender Savoy was to +surrender a great deal more than so many square acres of land or so much +revenue. In its consequences, the surrender of Savoy was to make a +surrender to France of Switzerland and Italy, of both which countries +Savoy is the key,--as it is known to ordinary speculators in politics, +though it may not be known to the weavers in Norwich, who, it seems, are +by Mr. Fox called to be the judges in this matter. + +A sure way, indeed, to encourage France not to make a surrender of this +key of Italy and Switzerland, or of Mentz, the key of Germany, or of any +other object whatsoever which she holds, is to let her see _that the +people of England raise a clamor against the war before terms are so +much as proposed on any side_. From that moment the Jacobins would be +masters of the terms. They would know that Parliament, at all hazards, +would force the king to a separate peace. The crown could not, in that +case, have any use of its judgment. Parliament could not possess more +judgment than the crown, when besieged (as Mr. Fox proposed to Mr. +Gurney) by the cries of the manufacturers. This description of men Mr. +Fox endeavored in his speech by every method to irritate and inflame. In +effect, his two speeches were, through the whole, nothing more than an +amplification of the Norwich handbill. He rested the greatest part of +his argument on the distress of trade, which he attributed to the war; +though it was obvious to any tolerably good observation, and, much more, +must have been clear to such an observation as his, that the then +difficulties of the trade and manufacture could have no sort of +connection with our share in it. The war had hardly begun. We had +suffered neither by spoil, nor by defeat, nor by disgrace of any kind. +Public credit was so little impaired, that, instead of being supported +by any extraordinary aids from individuals, it advanced a credit to +individuals to the amount of five millions for the support of trade and +manufactures under their temporary difficulties, a thing before never +heard of,--a thing of which I do not commend the policy, but only state +it, to show that Mr. Fox's ideas of the effects of war were without any +trace of foundation. + +33. It is impossible not to connect the arguments and proceedings of a +party with that of its leader,--especially when not disavowed or +controlled by him. Mr. Fox's partisans declaim against all the powers of +Europe, except the Jacobins, just as he does; but not having the same +reasons for management and caution which he has, they speak out. He +satisfies himself merely with making his invectives, and leaves others +to draw the conclusion. But they produce their Polish interposition for +the express purpose of leading to a French alliance. They urge their +French peace in order to make a junction with the Jacobins to oppose the +powers, whom, in their language, they call despots, and their leagues, a +combination of despots. Indeed, no man can look on the present posture +of Europe with the least degree of discernment, who will not be +thoroughly convinced that England must be the fast friend or the +determined enemy of France. There is no medium; and I do not think Mr. +Fox to be so dull as not to observe this. His peace would have involved +us instantly in the most extensive and most ruinous wars, at the same +time that it would have made a broad highway (across which no human +wisdom could put an effectual barrier) for a mutual intercourse with the +fraternizing Jacobins on both sides, the consequences of which those +will certainly not provide against who do not dread or dislike them. + +34. It is not amiss in this place to enter a little more fully into the +spirit of the principal arguments on which Mr. Fox thought proper to +rest this his grand and concluding motion, particularly such as were +drawn from the internal state of our affairs. Under a specious +appearance, (not uncommonly put on by men of unscrupulous ambition,) +that of tenderness and compassion to the poor, he did his best to appeal +to the judgments of the meanest and most ignorant of the people on the +merits of the war. He had before done something of the same dangerous +kind in his printed letter. The ground of a political war is of all +things that which the poor laborer and manufacturer are the least +capable of conceiving. This sort of people know in general that they +must suffer by war. It is a matter to which they are sufficiently +competent, because it is a matter of feeling. The _causes_ of a war are +not matters of feeling, but of reason and foresight, and often of remote +considerations, and of a very great combination of circumstances which +_they_ are utterly incapable of comprehending: and, indeed, it is not +every man in the highest classes who is altogether equal to it. Nothing, +in a general sense, appears to me less fair and justifiable (even if no +attempt were made to inflame the passions) than to submit a matter on +discussion to a tribunal incapable of judging of more than _one side_ of +the question. It is at least as unjustifiable to inflame the passions of +such judges against _that side_ in favor of which they cannot so much as +comprehend the arguments. Before the prevalence of the French system, +(which, as far as it has gone, has extinguished the salutary prejudice +called our country,) nobody was more sensible of this important truth +than Mr. Fox; and nothing was more proper and pertinent, or was more +felt at the time, than his reprimand to Mr. Wilberforce for an +inconsiderate expression which tended to call in the judgment of the +poor to estimate the policy of war upon the standard of the taxes they +may be obliged to pay towards its support. + +35. It is fatally known that the great object of the Jacobin system is, +to excite the lowest description of the people to range themselves under +ambitious men for the pillage and destruction of the more eminent orders +and classes of the community. The thing, therefore, that a man not +fanatically attached to that dreadful project would most studiously +avoid is, to act a part with the French _Propagandists_, in attributing +(as they constantly do) all wars, and all the consequences of wars, to +the pride of those orders, and to their contempt of the weak and +indigent part of the society. The ruling Jacobins insist upon it, that +even the wars which they carry on with so much obstinacy against all +nations are made to prevent the poor from any longer being the +instruments and victims of kings, nobles, and the aristocracy of +burghers and rich men. They pretend that the destruction of kings, +nobles, and the aristocracy of burghers and rich men is the only means +of establishing an universal and perpetual peace. This is the great +drift of all their writings, from the time of the meeting of the states +of France, in 1789, to the publication of the last Morning Chronicle. +They insist that even the war which with so much boldness they have +declared against all nations is to prevent the poor from becoming the +instruments and victims of these persons and descriptions. It is but too +easy, if you once teach poor laborers and mechanics to defy their +prejudices, and, as this has been done with an industry scarcely +credible, to substitute the principles of fraternity in the room of that +salutary prejudice called our country,--it is, I say, but too easy to +persuade them, agreeably to what Mr. Fox hints in his public letter, +that this war is, and that the other wars have been, the wars of kings; +it is easy to persuade them that the terrors even of a foreign conquest +are not terrors for _them_; it is easy to persuade them, that, for their +part, _they_ have nothing to lose,--and that their condition is not +likely to be altered for the worse, whatever party may happen to prevail +in the war. Under any circumstances this doctrine is highly dangerous, +as it tends to make separate parties of the higher and lower orders, and +to put their interests on a different bottom. But if the enemy you have +to deal with should appear, as France now appears, under the very name +and title of the deliverer of the poor and the chastiser of the rich, +the former class would readily become not an indifferent spectator of +the war, but would be ready to enlist in the faction of the +enemy,--which they would consider, though under a foreign name, to be +more connected with them than an adverse description in the same land. +All the props of society would be drawn from us by these doctrines, and +the very foundations of the public defence would give way in an instant. + +36. There is no point which the faction of fraternity in England have +labored more than to excite in the poor the horror of any war with +France upon any occasion. When they found that their open attacks upon +our Constitution in favor of a French republic were for the present +repelled, they put that matter out of sight, and have taken up the more +plausible and popular ground of general peace, upon merely general +principles; although these very men, in the correspondence of their +clubs with those of France, had reprobated the neutrality which now they +so earnestly press. But, in reality, their maxim was, and is, "Peace and +alliance with France, and war with the rest of the world." + +37. This last motion of Mr. Fox bound up the whole of his politics +during the session. This motion had many circumstances, particularly in +the Norwich correspondence, by which the mischief of all the others was +aggravated beyond measure. Yet this last motion, far the worst of Mr. +Fox's proceedings, was the best supported of any of them, except his +amendment to the address. The Duke of Portland had directly engaged to +support the war;--here was a motion as directly made to force the crown +to put an end to it before a blow had been struck. The efforts of the +faction have so prevailed that some of his Grace's nearest friends have +actually voted for that motion; some, after showing themselves, went +away; others did not appear at all. So it must be, where a man is for +any time supported from personal considerations, without reference to +his public conduct. Through the whole of this business, the spirit of +fraternity appears to me to have been the governing principle. It might +be shameful for any man, above the vulgar, to show so blind a partiality +even to his own country as Mr. Fox appears, on all occasions, this +session, to have shown to France. Had Mr. Fox been a minister, and +proceeded on the principles laid down by him, I believe there is little +doubt he would have been considered as the most criminal statesman that +ever lived in this country. I do not know why a statesman out of place +is not to be judged in the same manner, unless we can excuse him by +pleading in his favor a total indifference to principle, and that he +would act and think in quite a different way, if he were in office. This +I will not suppose. One may think better of him, and that, in case of +his power, he might change his mind. But supposing, that, from better or +from worse motives, he might change his mind on his acquisition of the +favor of the crown, I seriously fear, that, if the king should to-morrow +put power into his hands, and that his good genius would inspire him +with maxims very different from those he has promulgated, he would not +be able to get the better of the ill temper and the ill doctrines he has +been the means of exciting and propagating throughout the kingdom. From +the very beginning of their inhuman and unprovoked rebellion and +tyrannic usurpation, he has covered the predominant faction in France, +and their adherents here, with the most exaggerated panegyrics; neither +has he missed a single opportunity of abusing and vilifying those who, +in uniform concurrence with the Duke of Portland's and Lord +Fitzwilliam's opinion, have maintained the true grounds of the +Revolution Settlement in 1688. He lamented all the defeats of the +French; he rejoiced in all their victories,--even when these victories +threatened to overwhelm the continent of Europe, and, by facilitating +their means of penetrating into Holland, to bring this most dreadful of +all evils with irresistible force to the very doors, if not into the +very heart, of our country. To this hour he always speaks of every +thought of overturning the French Jacobinism by force, on the part of +any power whatsoever, as an attempt unjust and cruel, and which he +reprobates with horror. If any of the French Jacobin leaders are spoken +of with hatred or scorn, he falls upon those who take that liberty with +all the zeal and warmth with which men of honor defend their particular +and bosom friends, when attacked. He always represents their cause as a +cause of liberty, and all who oppose it as partisans of despotism. He +obstinately continues to consider the great and growing vices, crimes, +and disorders of that country as only evils of passage, which are to +produce a permanently happy state of order and freedom. He represents +these disorders exactly in the same way and with the same limitations +which are used by one of the two great Jacobin factions: I mean that of +Pétion and Brissot. Like them, he studiously confines his horror and +reprobation only to the massacres of the 2d of September, and passes by +those of the 10th of August, as well as the imprisonment and deposition +of the king, which were the consequences of that day, as indeed were the +massacres themselves to which he confines his censure, though they were +not actually perpetrated till early in September. Like that faction, he +condemns, not the deposition, or the proposed exile or perpetual +imprisonment, but only the murder of the king. Mr. Sheridan, on every +occasion, palliates all their massacres committed in every part of +France, as the effects of a natural indignation at the exorbitances of +despotism, and of the dread of the people of returning under that yoke. +He has thus taken occasion to load, not the actors in this wickedness, +but the government of a mild, merciful, beneficent, and patriotic +prince, and his suffering, faithful subjects, with all the crimes of the +new anarchical tyranny under which the one has been murdered and the +others are oppressed. Those continual either praises or palliating +apologies of everything done in France, and those invectives as +uniformly vomited out upon all those who venture to express their +disapprobation of such proceedings, coming from a man of Mr. Fox's fame +and authority, and one who is considered as the person to whom a great +party of the wealthiest men of the kingdom look up, have been the cause +why the principle of French fraternity formerly gained the ground which +at one time it had obtained in this country. It will infallibly recover +itself again, and in ten times a greater degree, if the kind of peace, +in the manner which he preaches, ever shall be established with the +reigning faction in France. + +38. So far as to the French practices with regard to France and the +other powers of Europe. As to their principles and doctrines with +regard to the constitution of states, Mr. Fox studiously, on all +occasions, and indeed when no occasion calls for it, (as on the debate +of the petition for reform,) brings forward and asserts their +fundamental and fatal principle, pregnant with every mischief and every +crime, namely, that "in every country the people is the legitimate +sovereign": exactly conformable to the declaration of the French clubs +and legislators:--"La souveraineté est _une, indivisible, inalienable, +et imprescriptible_; elle appartient à la nation; aucune _section_ du +peuple ni aucun _individu_ ne peut s'en attribuer l'exercise." This +confounds, in a manner equally mischievous and stupid, the origin of a +government from the people with its continuance in their hands. I +believe that no such doctrine has ever been heard of in any public act +of any government whatsoever, until it was adopted (I think from the +writings of Rousseau) by the French Assemblies, who have made it the +basis of their Constitution at home, and of the matter of their +apostolate in every country. These and other wild declarations of +abstract principle, Mr. Fox says, are in themselves perfectly right and +true; though in some cases he allows the French draw absurd consequences +from them. But I conceive he is mistaken. The consequences are most +logically, though most mischievously, drawn from the premises and +principles by that wicked and ungracious faction. The fault is in the +foundation. + +39. Before society, in a multitude of men, it is obvious that +sovereignty and subjection are ideas which cannot exist. It is the +compact on which society is formed that makes both. But to suppose the +people, contrary to their compacts, both to give away and retain the +same thing is altogether absurd. It is worse, for it supposes in any +strong combination of men a power and right of always dissolving the +social union; which power, however, if it exists, renders them again as +little sovereigns as subjects, but a mere unconnected multitude. It is +not easy to state for what good end, at a time like this, when the +foundations of all ancient and prescriptive governments, such as ours, +(to which people submit, not because they have chosen them, but because +they are born to them,) are undermined by perilous theories, that Mr. +Fox should be so fond of referring to those theories, upon all +occasions, even though speculatively they might be true,--which God +forbid they should! Particularly I do not see the reason why he should +be so fond of declaring that the principles of the Revolution have made +the crown of Great Britain _elective_,--why he thinks it seasonable to +preach up with so much earnestness, for now three years together, the +doctrine of resistance and revolution at all,--or to assert that our +last Revolution, of 1688, stands on the same or similar principles with +that of France. We are not called upon to bring forward these doctrines, +which are hardly ever resorted to but in cases of extremity, and where +they are followed by correspondent actions. We are not called upon by +any circumstance, that I know of, which can justify a revolt, or which +demands a revolution, or can make an election of a successor to the +crown necessary, whatever latent right may be supposed to exist for +effectuating any of these purposes. + +40. Not the least alarming of the proceedings of Mr. Fox and his friends +in this session, especially taken in concurrence with their whole +proceedings with regard to France and its principles, is their eagerness +at this season, under pretence of Parliamentary reforms, (a project +which had been for some time rather dormant,) to discredit and disgrace +the House of Commons. For this purpose these gentlemen had found a way +to insult the House by several atrocious libels in the form of +petitions. In particular they brought up a libel, or rather a complete +digest of libellous matter, from the club called the Friends of the +People. It is, indeed, at once the most audacious and the most insidious +of all the performances of that kind which have yet appeared. It is said +to be the penmanship of Mr. Tierney, to bring whom into Parliament the +Duke of Portland formerly had taken a good deal of pains, and expended, +as I hear, a considerable sum of money. + +41. Among the circumstances of danger from that piece, and from its +precedent, it is observable that this is the first petition (if I +remember right) _coming from a club or association, signed by +individuals, denoting neither local residence nor corporate capacity_. +This mode of petition, not being strictly illegal or informal, though in +its spirit in the highest degree mischievous, may and will lead to other +things of that nature, tending to bring these clubs and associations to +the French model, and to make them in the end answer French purposes: I +mean, that, without legal names, these clubs will be led to assume +political capacities; that they may debate the forms of Constitution; +and that from their meetings they may insolently dictate their will to +the regular authorities of the kingdom, in the manner in which the +Jacobin clubs issue their mandates to the National Assembly or the +National Convention. The audacious remonstrance, I observe, is signed +by all of that association (the Friends of the People) _who are not in +Parliament_, and it was supported most strenuously by all the +associators _who are members_, with Mr. Fox at their head. He and they +contended for referring this libel to a committee. Upon the question of +that reference they grounded all their debate for a change in the +constitution of Parliament. The pretended petition is, in fact, a +regular charge or impeachment of the House of Commons, digested into a +number of articles. This plan of reform is not a criminal impeachment, +but a matter of prudence, to be submitted to the public wisdom, which +must be as well apprised of the facts as petitioners can be. But those +accusers of the House of Commons have proceeded upon the principles of a +criminal process, and have had the effrontery to offer proof on each +article. + +42. This charge the party of Mr. Fox maintained article by article, +beginning with the first,--namely, the interference of peers at +elections, and their nominating in effect several of the members of the +House of Commons. In the printed list of grievances which they made out +on the occasion, and in support of their charge, is found the borough +for which, under Lord Fitzwilliam's influence, I now sit. By this +remonstrance, and its object, they hope to defeat the operation of +property in elections, and in reality to dissolve the connection and +communication of interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual +support to each other. Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so +ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as +peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords +is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the +House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and +with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the +Lords could not exist a single year. They know that all these parts of +our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are +also connected as friends; otherwise nothing but confusion could be the +result of such a complex Constitution. It is natural, therefore, that +they who wish the common destruction of the whole and of all its parts +should contend for their total separation. But as the House of Commons +is that link which connects both the other parts of the Constitution +(the Crown and the Lords) _with the mass of the people_, it is to that +link (as it is natural enough) that their incessant attacks are +directed. That artificial representation of the people being once +discredited and overturned, all goes to pieces, and nothing but a plain +_French_ democracy or arbitrary monarchy can possibly exist. + +43. Some of these gentlemen who have attacked the House of Commons lean +to a representation of the people by the head,--that is, to _individual +representation_. None of them, that I recollect, except Mr. Fox, +directly rejected it. It is remarkable, however, that he only rejected +it by simply declaring an opinion. He let all the argument go against +his opinion. All the proceedings and arguments of his reforming friends +lead to individual representation, and to nothing else. It deserves to +be attentively observed, _that this individual representation is the +only plan of their reform which has been explicitly proposed_. In the +mean time, the conduct of Mr. Fox appears to be far more inexplicable, +on any good ground, than theirs, who propose the individual +representation; for he neither proposes anything, nor even suggests that +he has anything to propose, in lieu of the present mode of constituting +the House of Commons; on the contrary, he declares against all the plans +which have yet been suggested, either from himself or others: yet, thus +unprovided with any plan whatsoever, he pressed forward this unknown +reform with all possible warmth; and for that purpose, in a speech of +several hours, he urged the referring to a committee the libellous +impeachment of the House of Commons by the association of the Friends of +the People. But for Mr. Fox to discredit Parliament _as it stands_, to +countenance leagues, covenants, and associations for its further +discredit, to render it perfectly odious and contemptible, and at the +same time to propose nothing at all in place of what he disgraces, is +worse, if possible, than to contend for personal individual +representation, and is little less than demanding, in plain terms, to +bring on plain anarchy. + +44. Mr. Fox and these gentlemen have for the present been defeated; but +they are neither converted nor disheartened. They have solemnly declared +that they will persevere until they shall have obtained their +ends,--persisting to assert that the House of Commons not only is not +the true representative of the people, but that it does not answer the +purpose of such representation: most of them insist that all the debts, +the taxes, and the burdens of all kinds on the people, with every other +evil and inconvenience which we have suffered since the Revolution, have +been owing solely to an House of Commons which does not speak the sense +of the people. + +45. It is also not to be forgotten, that Mr. Fox, and all who hold with +him, on this, as on all other occasions of pretended reform, most +bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt with treachery, in declining to support the +scandalous charges and indefinite projects of this infamous libel from +the Friends of the People. By the animosity with which they persecute +all those who grow cold in this cause of pretended reform, they hope, +that, if, through levity, inexperience, or ambition, any young person +(like Mr. Pitt, for instance) happens to be once embarked in their +design, they shall by a false shame keep him fast in it forever. Many +they have so hampered. + +46. I know it is usual, when the peril and alarm of the hour appears to +be a little overblown, to think no more of the matter. But, for my part, +I look back with horror on what we have escaped, and am full of anxiety +with regard to the dangers which in my opinion are still to be +apprehended both at home and abroad. This business has cast deep roots. +Whether it is necessarily connected in theory with Jacobinism is not +worth a dispute. The two things are connected in fact. The partisans of +the one are the partisans of the other. I know it is common with those +who are favorable to the gentlemen of Mr. Fox's party and to their +leader, though not at all devoted to all their reforming projects or +their Gallican politics, to argue, in palliation of their conduct, that +it is not in their power to do all the harm which their actions +evidently tend to. It is said, that, as the people will not support +them, they may safely be indulged in those eccentric fancies of reform, +and those theories which lead to nothing. This apology is not very much +to the honor of those politicians whose interests are to be adhered to +in defiance of their conduct. I cannot flatter myself that these +incessant attacks on the constitution of Parliament are safe. It is not +in my power to despise the unceasing efforts of a confederacy of about +fifty persons of eminence: men, for the far greater part, of very ample +fortunes either in possession or in expectancy; men of decided +characters and vehement passions; men of very great talents of all +kinds, of much boldness, and of the greatest possible spirit of +artifice, intrigue, adventure, and enterprise, all operating with +unwearied activity and perseverance. These gentlemen are much stronger, +too, without doors than some calculate. They have the more active part +of the Dissenters with them, and the whole clan of speculators of all +denominations,--a large and growing species. They have that floating +multitude which goes with events, and which suffers the loss or gain of +a battle to decide its opinions of right and wrong. As long as by every +art this party keeps alive a spirit of disaffection against the very +Constitution of the kingdom, and attributes, as lately it has been in +the habit of doing, all the public misfortunes to that Constitution, it +is absolutely _impossible_ but that some moment must arrive in which +they will be enabled to produce a pretended reform and a real +revolution. If ever the body of this _compound Constitution_ of ours is +subverted, either in favor of unlimited monarchy or of wild democracy, +that ruin will _most certainly_ be the result of this very sort of +machinations against the House of Commons. It is not from a confidence +in the views or intentions of any statesman that I think he is to be +indulged in these perilous amusements. + +47. Before it is made the great object of any man's political life to +raise another to power, it is right to consider what are the real +dispositions of the person to be so elevated. We are not to form our +judgment on those dispositions from the rules and principles of a court +of justice, but from those of private discretion,--not looking for what +would serve to criminate another, but what is sufficient to direct +ourselves. By a comparison of a series of the discourses and actions of +certain men for a reasonable length of time, it is impossible not to +obtain sufficient indication of the general tendency of their views and +principles. There is no other rational mode of proceeding. It is true, +that in some one or two perhaps not well-weighed expressions, or some +one or two unconnected and doubtful affairs, we may and ought to judge +of the actions or words by our previous good or ill opinion of the man. +But this allowance has its bounds. It does not extend to any regular +course of systematic action, or of constant and repeated discourse. It +is against every principle of common sense, and of justice to one's self +and to the public, to judge of a series of speeches and actions from the +man, and not of the man from the whole tenor of his language and +conduct. I have stated the above matters, not as inferring a criminal +charge of evil intention. If I had meant to do so, perhaps they are +stated with tolerable exactness. But I have no such view. The intentions +of these gentlemen may be very pure. I do not dispute it. But I think +they are in some great error. If these things are done by Mr. Fox and +his friends with good intentions, they are not done less dangerously; +for it shows these good intentions are not under the direction of safe +maxims and principles. + +48. Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and the gentlemen who call themselves the +Phalanx, have not been so very indulgent to others. They have thought +proper to ascribe to those members of the House of Commons, who, in +exact agreement with the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, abhor +and oppose the French system, the basest and most unworthy motives for +their conduct;--as if none could oppose that atheistic, immoral, and +impolitic project set up in France, so disgraceful and destructive, as I +conceive, to human nature itself, but with some sinister intentions. +They treat those members on all occasions with a sort of lordly +insolence, though they are persons that (whatever homage they may pay to +the eloquence of the gentlemen who choose to look down upon them with +scorn) are not their inferiors in any particular which calls for and +obtains just consideration from the public: not their inferiors in +knowledge of public law, or of the Constitution of the kingdom; not +their inferiors in their acquaintance with its foreign and domestic +interests; not their inferiors in experience or practice of business; +not their inferiors in moral character; not their inferiors in the +proofs they have given of zeal and industry in the service of their +country. Without denying to these gentlemen the respect and +consideration which it is allowed justly belongs to them, we see no +reason why they should not as well be obliged to defer something to our +opinions as that we should be bound blindly and servilely to follow +those of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Lambton, +Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Taylor, and others. We are members of Parliament and +their equals. We never consider ourselves as their followers. These +gentlemen (some of them hardly born when some of us came into +Parliament) have thought proper to treat us as deserters,--as if we had +been listed into their phalanx like soldiers, and had sworn to live and +die in their French principles. This insolent claim of superiority on +their part, and of a sort of vassalage to them on that of other members, +is what no liberal mind will submit to bear. + +49. The society of the Liberty of the Press, the Whig Club, and the +Society for Constitutional Information, and (I believe) the Friends of +the People, as well as some clubs in Scotland, have, indeed, declared, +"that their confidence in and attachment to Mr. Fox has lately been +confirmed, strengthened, and increased by the calumnies" (as they are +called) "against him." It is true, Mr. Fox and his friends have those +testimonies in their favor, against certain old friends of the Duke of +Portland. Yet, on a full, serious, and, I think, dispassionate +consideration of the whole of what Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan and their +friends have acted, said, and written, in this session, instead of doing +anything which might tend to procure power, or any share of it +whatsoever, to them or to their phalanx, (as they call it,) or to +increase their credit, influence, or popularity in the nation, I think +it one of my most serious and important public duties, in whatsoever +station I may be placed for the short time I have to live, effectually +to employ my best endeavors, by every prudent and every lawful means, to +traverse all their designs. I have only to lament that my abilities are +not greater, and that my probability of life is not better, for the +more effectual pursuit of that object. But I trust that neither the +principles nor exertions will die with me. I am the rather confirmed in +this my resolution, and in this my wish of transmitting it, because +every ray of hope concerning a possible control or mitigation of the +enormous mischiefs which the principles of these gentlemen, and which +their connections, full as dangerous as their principles, might receive +from the influence of the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, on +becoming their colleagues in office, is now entirely banished from the +mind of every one living. It is apparent, even to the world at large, +that, so far from having a power to direct or to guide Mr. Fox, Mr. +Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and the rest, in any important matter, they have +not, through this session, been able to prevail on them to forbear, or +to delay, or mitigate, or soften, any one act, or any one expression, +upon subjects on which they essentially differed. + +50. Even if this hope of a possible control did exist, yet the declared +opinions, and the uniform line of conduct conformable to those opinions, +pursued by Mr. Fox, must become a matter of serious alarm, if he should +obtain a power either at court or in Parliament or in the nation at +large, and for this plain reason: he must be the most active and +efficient member in any administration of which he shall form a part. +That a man, or set of men, are guided by such not dubious, but delivered +and avowed principles and maxims of policy, as to need a watch and check +on them in the exercise of the highest power, ought, in my opinion, to +make every man, who is not of the same principles and guided by the +same maxims, a little cautious how he makes himself one of the +traverses of a ladder to help such a man, or such a set of men, to climb +up to the highest authority. A minister of this country is to be +controlled by the House of Commons. He is to be trusted, not +_controlled_, by his colleagues in office: if he were to be controlled, +government, which ought to be the source of order, would itself become a +scene of anarchy. Besides, Mr. Fox is a man of an aspiring and +commanding mind, made rather to control than to be controlled, and he +never will be nor can be in any administration in which he will be +guided by any of those whom I have been accustomed to confide in. It is +absurd to think that he would or could. If his own opinions do not +control him, nothing can. When we consider of an adherence to a man +which leads to his power, we must not only see what the man is, but how +he stands related. It is not to be forgotten that Mr. Fox acts in close +and inseparable connection with another gentleman of exactly the same +description as himself, and who, perhaps, of the two, is the leader. The +rest of the body are not a great deal more tractable; and over them, if +Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan have authority, most assuredly the Duke of +Portland has not the smallest degree of influence. + +51. One must take care that a blind partiality to some persons, and as +blind an hatred to others, may not enter into our minds under a color of +inflexible public principle. We hear, as a reason for clinging to Mr. +Fox at present, that nine years ago Mr. Pitt got into power by +mischievous intrigues with the court, with the Dissenters, and with +other factious people out of Parliament, to the discredit and weakening +of the power of the House of Commons. His conduct nine years ago I still +hold to be very culpable. There are, however, many things very culpable +that I do not know how to punish. My opinion on such matters I must +submit to the good of the state, as I have done on other occasions,--and +particularly with regard to the authors and managers of the American +war, with whom I have acted, both in office and in opposition, with +great confidence and cordiality, though I thought many of their acts +criminal and impeachable. Whilst the misconduct of Mr. Pitt and his +associates was yet recent, it was not possible to get Mr. Fox of himself +to take a single step, or even to countenance others in taking any step, +upon the ground of that misconduct and false policy; though, if the +matters had been then taken up and pursued, such a step could not have +appeared so evidently desperate as now it is. So far from pursuing Mr. +Pitt, I know that then, and for some time after, some of Mr. Fox's +friends were actually, and with no small earnestness, looking out to a +coalition with that gentleman. For years I never heard this circumstance +of Mr. Pitt's misconduct on that occasion mentioned by Mr. Fox, either +in public or in private, as a ground for opposition to that minister. +All opposition, from that period to this very session, has proceeded +upon the separate measures as they separately arose, without any +vindictive retrospect to Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784. My memory, however, +may fail me. I must appeal to the printed debates, which (so far as Mr. +Fox is concerned) are unusually accurate. + +52. Whatever might have been in our power at an early period, at this +day I see no remedy for what was done in 1784. I had no great hopes +even at the time. I was therefore very eager to record a remonstrance on +the journals of the House of Commons, as a caution against such a +popular delusion in times to come; and this I then feared, and now am +certain, is all that could be done. I know of no way of animadverting on +the crown. I know of no mode of calling to account the House of Lords, +who threw out the India Bill in a way not much to their credit. As +little, or rather less, am I able to coerce the people at large, who +behaved very unwisely and intemperately on that occasion. Mr. Pitt was +then accused, by me as well as others, of attempting to be minister +without enjoying the confidence of the House of Commons, though he did +enjoy the confidence of the crown. That House of Commons, whose +confidence he did not enjoy, unfortunately did not itself enjoy the +confidence (though we well deserved it) either of the crown or of the +public. For want of that confidence, the then House of Commons did not +survive the contest. Since that period Mr. Pitt has enjoyed the +confidence of the crown, and of the Lords, and _of the House of +Commons_, through two successive Parliaments; and I suspect that he has +ever since, and that he does still, enjoy as large a portion, at least, +of the confidence of the people without doors as his great rival. Before +whom, then, is Mr. Pitt to be impeached, and by whom? The more I +consider the matter, the more firmly I am convinced that the idea of +proscribing Mr. Pitt _indirectly_, when you cannot _directly punish_ +him, is as chimerical a project, and as unjustifiable, as it would be to +have proscribed Lord North. For supposing that by indirect ways of +opposition, by opposition upon measures which do not relate to the +business of 1784, but which on other grounds might prove unpopular, you +were to drive him from his seat, this would be no example whatever of +punishment for the matters we charge as offences in 1784. On a cool and +dispassionate view of the affairs of this time and country, it appears +obvious to me that one or the other of those two great men, that is, Mr. +Pitt or Mr. Fox, must be minister. They are, I am sorry for it, +irreconcilable. Mr. Fox's conduct _in this session_ has rendered the +idea of his power a matter of serious alarm to many people who were very +little pleased with the proceedings of Mr. Pitt in the beginning of his +administration. They like neither the conduct of Mr. Pitt in 1784, nor +that of Mr. Fox in 1793; but they estimate which of the evils is most +pressing at the time, and what is likely to be the consequence of a +change. If Mr. Fox be wedded, they must be sensible that his opinions +and principles on the now existing state of things at home and abroad +must be taken as his portion. In his train must also be taken the whole +body of gentlemen who are pledged to him and to each other, and to their +common politics and principles. I believe no king of Great Britain ever +will adopt, for his confidential servants, that body of gentlemen, +holding that body of principles. Even if the present king or his +successor should think fit to take that step, I apprehend a general +discontent of those who wish that this nation and that Europe should +continue in their present state would ensue,--a discontent which, +combined with the principles and progress of the new men in power, would +shake this kingdom to its foundations. I do not believe any one +political conjecture can be more certain than this. + +53. Without at all defending or palliating Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784, I +must observe, that the crisis of 1793, with regard to everything at home +and abroad, is full as important as that of 1784 ever was, and, if for +no other reason, by being present, is much more important. It is not to +nine years ago we are to look for the danger of Mr. Fox's and Mr. +Sheridan's conduct, and that of the gentlemen who act with them. It is +at _this_ very time, and in _this_ very session, that, if they had not +been strenuously resisted, they would not only have discredited the +House of Commons, (as Mr. Pitt did in 1784, when he persuaded the king +to reject their advice, and to appeal from them to the people,) but, in +my opinion, would have been the means of wholly subverting the House of +Commons and the House of Peers, and the whole Constitution actual and +virtual, together with the safety and independence of this nation, and +the peace and settlement of every state in the now Christian world. It +is to our opinion of the nature of Jacobinism, and of the probability, +by corruption, faction, and force, of its gaining ground everywhere, +that the question whom and what you are to support is to be determined. +For my part, without doubt or hesitation, I look upon Jacobinism as the +most dreadful and the most shameful evil which ever afflicted mankind, a +thing which goes beyond the power of all calculation in its +mischief,--and that, if it is suffered to exist in France, we must in +England, and speedily too, fall into that calamity. + +54. I figure to myself the purpose of these gentlemen accomplished, and +this ministry destroyed. I see that the persons who in that case must +rule can be no other than Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, the Marquis +of Lansdowne, Lord Thurlow, Lord Lauderdale, and the Duke of Norfolk, +with the other chiefs of the Friends of the People, the Parliamentary +reformers, and the admirers of the French Revolution. The principal of +these are all formally pledged to their projects. If the Duke of +Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam should be admitted into that system, (as +they might and probably would be,) it is quite certain they could not +have the smallest weight in it,--less, indeed, than what they now +possess, if less were possible: because they would be less wanted than +they now are; and because all those who wished to join them, and to act +under them, have been rejected by the Duke of Portland and Lord +Fitzwilliam themselves; and Mr. Fox, finding them thus by themselves +disarmed, has built quite a new fabric, upon quite a new foundation. +There is no trifling on this subject. We see very distinctly before us +the ministry that would be formed and the plan that would be pursued. If +we like the plan, we must wish the power of those who are to carry it +into execution; but to pursue the political exaltation of those whose +political measures we disapprove and whose principles we dissent from is +a species of modern politics not easily comprehensible, and which must +end in the ruin of the country, if it should continue and spread. Mr. +Pitt may be the worst of men, and Mr. Fox may be the best; but, at +present, the former is in the interest of his country, and of the order +of things long established in Europe: Mr. Fox is not. I have, for one, +been born in this order of things, and would fain die in it. I am sure +it is sufficient to make men as virtuous, as happy, and as knowing as +anything which Mr. Fox, and his friends abroad or at, home, would +substitute in its place; and I should be sorry that any set of +politicians should obtain power in England whose principles or schemes +should lead them to countenance persons or factions whose object is to +introduce some new devised order of things into England, or to support +that order where it is already introduced, in France,--a place in which +if it can be fixed, in my mind, it must have a certain and decided +influence in and upon this kingdom. + +This is my account of my conduct to my private friends. I have already +said all I wish to say, or nearly so, to the public. I write this with +pain and with an heart full of grief. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is an exception, that in one of his last speeches (but not +before) Mr. Fox seemed to think an alliance with Spain might be proper. + + + + +PREFACE + +TO THE + +ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT + +TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. + +TRANSLATED BY + +THE LATE WILLIAM BURKE, ESQ. + +1794. + + + + +PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS. + + +The French Revolution has been the subject of various speculations and +various histories. As might be expected, the royalists and the +republicans have differed a good deal in their accounts of the +principles of that Revolution, of the springs which have set it in +motion, and of the true character of those who have been, or still are, +the principal actors on that astonishing scene. + +They who are inclined to think favorably of that event will undoubtedly +object to every state of facts which comes only from the authority of a +royalist. Thus much must be allowed by those who are the most firmly +attached to the cause of religion, law, and order, (for of such, and not +of friends to despotism, the royal party is composed,)--that their very +affection to this generous and manly cause, and their abhorrence of a +Revolution not less fatal to liberty than to government, may possibly +lead them in some particulars to a more harsh representation of the +proceedings of their adversaries than would be allowed by the cold +neutrality of an impartial judge. This sort of error arises from a +source highly laudable; but the exactness of truth may suffer even from +the feelings of virtue. History will do justice to the intentions of +worthy men, but it will be on its guard against their infirmities; it +will examine with great strictness of scrutiny whatever appears from a +writer in favor of his own cause. On the other hand, whatever escapes +him, and makes against that cause, comes with the greatest weight. + +In this important controversy, the translator of the following work +brings forward to the English tribunal of opinion the testimony of a +witness beyond all exception. His competence is undoubted. He knows +everything which concerns this Revolution to the bottom. He is a chief +actor in all the scenes which he presents. No man can object to him as a +royalist: the royal party, and the Christian religion, never had a more +determined enemy. In a word, it is BRISSOT. It is Brissot, the +republican, the Jacobin, and the philosopher, who is brought to give an +account of Jacobinism, and of republicanism, and of philosophy. + +It is worthy of observation, that this his account of the genius of +Jacobinism and its effects is not confined to the period in which that +faction came to be divided within itself. In several, and those very +important particulars, Brissot's observations apply to the whole of the +preceding period before the great schism, and whilst the Jacobins acted +as one body; insomuch that the far greater part of the proceedings of +the ruling powers since the commencement of the Revolution in France, so +strikingly painted, so strongly and so justly reprobated by Brissot, +were the acts of Brissot himself and his associates. All the members of +the Girondin subdivision were as deeply concerned as any of the Mountain +could possibly be, and some of them much more deeply, in those horrid +transactions which have filled all the thinking part of Europe with the +greatest detestation, and with the most serious apprehensions for the +common liberty and safety. + +A question will very naturally be asked,--What could induce Brissot to +draw such a picture? He must have been sensible it was his own. The +answer is,--The inducement was the same with that which led him to +partake in the perpetration of all the crimes the calamitous effects of +which he describes with the pen of a master,--ambition. His faction, +having obtained their stupendous and unnatural power by rooting out of +the minds of his unhappy countrymen every principle of religion, +morality, loyalty, fidelity, and honor, discovered, that, when authority +came into their hands, it would be a matter of no small difficulty for +them to carry on government on the principles by which they had +destroyed it. + +The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality were +very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of +tranquillity and order. They who were taught to find nothing to respect +in the title and in the virtues of Louis the Sixteenth, a prince +succeeding to the throne by the fundamental laws, in the line of a +succession of monarchs continued for fourteen hundred years, found +nothing which could bind them to an implicit fidelity and dutiful +allegiance to Messrs. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Anacharsis Clootz, +and Thomas Paine. + +In this difficulty, they did as well as they could. To govern the +people, they must incline the people to obey. The work was difficult, +but it was necessary. They were to accomplish it by such materials and +by such instruments as they had in their hands. They were to accomplish +the purposes of order, morality, and submission to the laws, from the +principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. Ill as the disguise +became them, they began to assume the mask of an austere and rigid +virtue; they exhausted all the stores of their eloquence (which in some +of them were not inconsiderable) in declamations against tumult and +confusion; they made daily harangues on the blessings of order, +discipline, quiet, and obedience to authority; they even showed some +sort of disposition to protect such property as had not been +confiscated. They who on every occasion had discovered a sort of furious +thirst of blood and a greedy appetite for slaughter, who avowed and +gloried in the murders and massacres of the 14th of July, of the 5th and +6th of October, and of the 10th of August, now began to be squeamish and +fastidious with regard to those of the 2nd of September. + +In their pretended scruples on the sequel of the slaughter of the 10th +of August, they imposed upon no living creature, and they obtained not +the smallest credit for humanity. They endeavored to establish a +distinction, by the belief of which they hoped to keep the spirit of +murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own purposes, without +endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison which they prepared +for their enemies. + +Roland was the chief and the most accredited of the faction. His morals +had furnished little matter of exception against him. Old, domestic, and +uxorious, he led a private life sufficiently blameless. He was therefore +set up as the _Cato_ of the republican party, which did not abound in +such characters. + +This man, like most of the chiefs, was the manager of a newspaper, in +which he promoted the interest of his party. He was a fatal present +made by the revolutionists to the unhappy king, as one of his ministers +under the new Constitution. Amongst his colleagues were Clavière and +Servan. All the three have since that time either lost their heads by +the axe of their associates in rebellion, or, to evade their own +revolutionary justice, have fallen by their own hands. + +These ministers were regarded by the king as in a conspiracy to dethrone +him. Nobody who considers the circumstances which preceded the +deposition of Louis the Sixteenth, nobody who attends to the subsequent +conduct of those ministers, can hesitate about the reality of such a +conspiracy. The king certainly had no doubt of it; he found himself +obliged to remove them; and the necessity, which first obliged him to +choose such regicide ministers constrained him to replace them by +Dumouriez the Jacobin, and some others of little efficiency, though of a +better description. + +A little before this removal, and evidently as a part of the conspiracy, +Roland put into the king's hands, as a memorial, the most insolent, +seditious, and atrocious libel that has probably ever been penned. This +paper Roland a few days after delivered to the National Assembly,[2] who +instantly published and dispersed it over all France; and in order to +give it the stronger operation, they declared that he and his brother +ministers had carried with them the regret of the nation. None of the +writings which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage fury ever +worked up a fiercer ferment through the whole mass of the republicans +in every part of France. + +Under the thin veil of _prediction_, he strongly _recommends_ all the +abominable practices which afterwards followed. In particular, he +inflamed the minds of the populace against the respectable and +conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the massacre, and +who were to him the chief objects of a malignity and rancor that one +could hardly think to exist in an human heart. + +We have the relics of his fanatical persecution here. We are in a +condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the +persecuted: I do not say the accusers and accused; because, in all the +furious declamations of the atheistic faction against these men, not one +specific charge has been made upon any one person of those who suffered +in their massacre or by their decree of exile. + +The king had declared that he would sooner perish under their axe (he +too well saw what was preparing for him) than give his sanction to the +iniquitous act of proscription under which those innocent people were to +be transported. + +On this proscription of the clergy a principal part of the ostensible +quarrel between the king and those ministers had turned. From the time +of the authorized publication of this libel, some of the manoeuvres long +and uniformly pursued for the king's deposition became more and more +evident and declared. + +The 10th of August came on, and in the manner in which Roland had +predicted: it was followed by the same consequences. The king was +deposed, after cruel massacres in the courts and the apartments of his +palace and in almost all parts of the city. In reward of his treason to +his old master, Roland was by his new masters named Minister of the Home +Department. + +The massacres of the 2nd of September were begotten by the massacres of +the 10th of August. They were universally foreseen and hourly expected. +During this short interval between the two murderous scenes, the furies, +male and female, cried out havoc as loudly and as fiercely as ever. The +ordinary jails were all filled with prepared victims; and when they +overflowed, churches were turned into jails. At this time the relentless +Roland had the care of the general police;--he had for his colleague the +bloody Danton, who was Minister of Justice; the insidious Pétion was +Mayor of Paris; the treacherous Manuel was Procurator of the Common +Hall. The magistrates (some or all of them) were evidently the authors +of this massacre. Lest the national guard should, by their very name, be +reminded of their duty in preserving the lives of their fellow-citizens, +the Common Council of Paris, pretending that it was in vain to think of +resisting the murderers, (although in truth neither their numbers nor +their arms were at all formidable,) obliged those guards to draw the +charges from their muskets, and took away their bayonets. One of their +journalists, and, according to their fashion, one of their leading +statesmen, Gorsas, mentions this fact in his newspaper, which he +formerly called the Galley Journal. The title was well suited to the +paper and its author. For some felonies he had been sentenced to the +galleys; but, by the benignity of the late king, this felon (to be one +day advanced to the rank of a regicide) had been pardoned and released +at the intercession of the ambassadors of Tippoo Sultan. His gratitude +was such as might naturally have been expected; and it has lately been +rewarded as it deserved. This liberated galley-slave was raised, in +mockery of all criminal law, to be Minister of Justice: he became from +his elevation a more conspicuous object of accusation, and he has since +received the punishment of his former crimes in proscription and death. + +It will be asked, how the Minister of the Home Department was employed +at this crisis. The day after the massacre had commenced, Roland +appeared; but not with the powerful apparatus of a protecting +magistrate, to rescue those who had survived the slaughter of the first +day: nothing of this. On the 3rd of September, (that is, the day after +the commencement of the massacre,[3]) he writes a long, elaborate, +verbose epistle to the Assembly, in which, after magnifying, according +to the _bon-ton_ of the Revolution, his own integrity, humanity, +courage, and patriotism, he first directly justifies all the bloody +proceedings of the 10th of August. He considers the slaughter of that +day as a necessary measure for defeating a conspiracy which (with a full +knowledge of the falsehood of his assertion) he asserts to have been +formed for a massacre of the people of Paris, and which he more than +insinuates was the work of his late unhappy master,--who was universally +known to carry his dread of shedding the blood of his most guilty +subjects to an excess. + +"Without the day of the 10th," says he, "it is evident that we should +have been lost. The court, prepared for a long time, waited for the +hour which was to accumulate all treasons, to display over Paris the +standard of death, and to reign there by terror. The sense of the +people, (_le sentiment_,) always just and ready when their opinion is +not corrupted, foresaw the epoch marked for their destruction, and +rendered it fatal to the conspirators." He then proceeds, in the cant +which has been applied to palliate all their atrocities from the 14th of +July, 1789, to the present time:--"It is in the nature of things," +continues he, "and in that of the human heart, that victory should bring +with it _some_ excess. The sea, agitated by a violent storm, roars +_long_ after the tempest; but _everything has bounds_, which ought _at +length_ to be observed." + +In this memorable epistle, he considers such _excesses_ as fatalities +arising from the very nature of things, and consequently not to be +punished. He allows a space of time for the duration of these +agitations; and lest he should be thought rigid and too scanty in his +measure, he thinks it may be _long_. But he would have things to cease +_at length_. But when? and where?--When they may approach his own +person. + +"_Yesterday_," says he, "the ministers _were denounced: vaguely_, +indeed, as to the _matter_, because subjects of reproach were wanting; +but with that warmth and force of assertion which strike the imagination +and seduce it for a moment, and which mislead and destroy confidence, +without which no man should remain in place in a free government. +_Yesterday, again_, in an assembly of the presidents of all the +sections, convoked by the ministers, with the view of conciliating all +minds, and of mutual explanation, I perceived _that distrust which +suspects, interrogates, and fetters operations_." + +In this manner (that is, in mutual suspicions and interrogatories) this +virtuous Minister of the Home Department, and all the magistracy of +Paris, spent the first day of the massacre, the atrocity of which has +spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. It does not appear that the +putting a stop to the massacre had any part in the object of their +meeting, or in their consultations when they were met. Here was a +minister tremblingly alive to his own safety, dead to that of his +fellow-citizens, eager to preserve his place, and worse than indifferent +about its most important duties. Speaking of the people, he says "that +their hidden enemies may make use of this _agitation_" (the tender +appellation which he gives to horrid massacre) "to hurt _their best +friends and their most able defenders. Already the example begins_: let +it restrain and arrest a _just_ rage. Indignation carried to its height +commences proscriptions which fall only on the _guilty_, but in which +error and particular passions may shortly involve the _honest man_." + +He saw that the able artificers in the trade and mystery of murder did +not choose that their skill should be unemployed after their first work, +and that they were full as ready to cut off their rivals as their +enemies. This gave him _one_ alarm that was serious. This letter of +Roland, in every part of it, lets out the secret of all the parties in +this Revolution. _Plena rimarum est; hoc atque illac perfluit_. We see +that none of them condemn the occasional practice of murder,--provided +it is properly applied,--provided it is kept within the bounds which +each of those parties think proper to prescribe. In this case Roland +feared, that, if what was occasionally useful should become habitual, +the practice might go further than was convenient. It might involve the +best friends of the last Revolution, as it had done the heroes of the +first Revolution: he feared that it would not be confined to the La +Fayettes and Clermont-Tonnerres, the Duponts and Barnaves, but that it +might extend to the Brissots and Vergniauds, to the Condorcets, the +Pétions, and to himself. Under this apprehension there is no doubt that +his humane feelings were altogether unaffected. + +His observations on the massacre of the preceding day are such as cannot +be passed over. "Yesterday," said he, "was a day upon the events of +which it is perhaps necessary to leave a _veil_. I know that the people +with their vengeance _mingled a sort of justice_: they did not take for +victims _all_ who presented themselves to their fury; they directed it +to _them who had for a long time been spared by the sword of the law_, +and who they _believed_, from the peril of circumstances, should be +sacrificed without delay. But I know that it is easy to _villains and +traitors_ to misrepresent this _effervescence_, and that it must be +checked; I know that we owe to all France the declaration, that the +_executive power_ could not foresee or prevent this excess; I know that +it is due to the constituted authorities to place a limit to it, or +consider themselves as abolished." + +In the midst of this carnage he thinks of nothing but throwing a veil +over it,--which was at once to cover the guilty from punishment, and to +extinguish all compassion for the sufferers. He apologizes for it; in +fact, he justifies it. He who (as the reader has just seen in what is +quoted from this letter) feels so much indignation at "vague +denunciations," when made against himself, and from which he then feared +nothing more than the subversion of his power, is not ashamed to +consider the charge of a conspiracy to massacre the Parisians, brought +against his master upon denunciations as vague as possible, or rather +upon no denunciations, as a perfect justification of the monstrous +proceedings against him. He is not ashamed to call the murder of the +unhappy priests in the Carmes, who were under no criminal denunciation +whatsoever, a "_vengeance_ mingled with a _sort of justice_"; he +observes that they "had been a long time spared by the sword of the +law," and calls by anticipation all those who should represent this +"_effervescence_" in other colors _villains and traitors_: he did not +than foresee how soon himself and his accomplices would be under the +necessity of assuming the pretended character of this new sort of +"_villany and treason_", in the hope of obliterating the memory of their +former real _villanies and treasons_; he did not foresee that in the +course of six months a formal manifesto on the part of himself and his +faction, written by his confederate Brissot, was to represent this +"_effervescence_" as another "_St. Bartholomew_" and speak of it as +"_having made humanity shudder, and sullied the Revolution forever_."[4] + +It is very remarkable that he takes upon himself to know the motives of +the assassins, their policy, and even what they "believed." How could +this be, if he had no connection with them? He praises the murderers for +not having taken as yet _all_ the lives of those who had, as he calls +it, "_presented themselves_ as victims to their fury." He paints the +miserable prisoners, who had been forcibly piled upon one another in +the Church of the Carmelites by his faction, as _presenting themselves_ +as victims to their fury,--as if death was their choice, or (allowing +the idiom of his language to make this equivocal) as if they were by +some accident _presented_ to the fury of their assassins: whereas he +knew that the leaders of the murderers sought these pure and innocent +victims in the places where they had deposited them and were sure to +find them. The very selection, which he praises as a _sort of justice_ +tempering their fury, proves beyond a doubt the foresight, deliberation, +and method with which this massacre was made. He knew that circumstance +on the very day of the commencement of the massacres, when, in all +probability, he had begun this letter,--for he presented it to the +Assembly on the very next. + +Whilst, however, he defends these acts, he is conscious that they will +appear in another light to the world. He therefore acquits the executive +power, that is, he acquits himself, (but only by his own assertion,) of +those acts of "_vengeance mixed with a sort of justice_," as an +"_excess_ which he could neither foresee nor prevent." He could not, he +says, foresee these acts, when he tells us the people of Paris had +sagacity so well to foresee the designs of the court on the 10th of +August,--to foresee them so well as to mark the precise epoch on which +they were to be executed, and to contrive to anticipate them on the very +day: he could not foresee these events, though he declares in this very +letter that victory _must_ bring with it some _excess_,--that "the sea +roars _long_ after the tempest." So far as to his foresight. As to his +disposition to prevent, if he had foreseen, the massacres of that +day,--this will be judged by his care in putting a stop to the massacre +then going on. This was no matter of foresight: he was in the very midst +of it. He does not so much as pretend that he had used any force to put +a stop to it. But if he had used any, the sanction given under his hand +to a sort of justice in the murderers was enough to disarm the +protecting force. + +That approbation of what they had already done had its natural effect on +the executive assassins, then in the paroxysm of their fury, as well as +on their employers, then in the midst of the execution of their +deliberate, cold-blooded system of murder. He did not at all differ from +either of them in the principle of those executions, but only in the +time of their duration,--and that only as it affected himself. This, +though to him a great consideration, was none to his confederates, who +were at the same time his rivals. They were encouraged to accomplish the +work they had in hand. They did accomplish it; and whilst this grave +moral epistle from a grave minister, recommending a cessation of their +work of "vengeance mingled with a sort of justice," was before a grave +assembly, the authors of the massacres proceeded without interruption in +their business for four days together,--that is, until the seventh of +that month, and until all the victims of the first proscription in Paris +and at Versailles and several other places were immolated at the shrine +of the grim Moloch of liberty and equality. All the priests, all the +loyalists, all the first essayists and novices of revolution in 1789, +that could be found, were promiscuously put to death. + +Through the whole of this long letter of Roland, it is curious to remark +how the nerve and vigor of his style, which had spoken so potently to +his sovereign, is relaxed when he addresses himself to the +_sans-culottes,_--how that strength and dexterity of arm, with which he +parries and beats down the sceptre, is enfeebled and lost when he comes +to fence with the poniard. When he speaks to the populace, he can no +longer be direct. The whole compass of the language is tried to find +synonymes and circumlocutions for massacre and murder. Things are never +called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes _agitation_, +sometimes _effervescence_, sometimes _excess_, sometimes too continued +an exercise of a _revolutionary power_. + +However, after what had passed had been praised, or excused, or +pardoned, he declares loudly against such proceedings _in future_. +Crimes had pioneered and made smooth the way for the march of the +virtues, and from that time order and justice and a sacred regard for +personal property were to become the rules for the new democracy. Here +Roland and the Brissotins leagued for their own preservation, by +endeavoring to preserve peace. This short story will render many of the +parts of Brissot's pamphlet, in which Roland's views and intentions are +so often alluded to, the more intelligible in themselves, and the more +useful in their application by the English reader. + +Under the cover of these artifices, Roland, Brissot, and their party +hoped to gain the bankers, merchants, substantial tradesmen, hoarders of +assignats, and purchasers of the confiscated lands of the clergy and +gentry to join with their party, as holding out some sort of security to +the effects which they possessed, whether these effects were the +acquisitions of fair commerce, or the gains of jobbing in the +misfortunes of their country and the plunder of their fellow-citizens. +In this design the party of Roland and Brissot succeeded in a great +degree. They obtained a majority in the National Convention. Composed, +however, as that assembly is, their majority was far from steady. But +whilst they appeared to gain the Convention, and many of the outlying +departments, they lost the city of Paris entirely and irrecoverably: it +was fallen into the hands of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton. Their +instruments were the _sans-culottes_, or rabble, who domineered in that +capital, and were wholly at the devotion of those incendiaries, and +received their daily pay. The people of property were of no consequence, +and trembled before Marat and his janizaries. As that great man had not +obtained the helm of the state, it was not yet come to his turn to act +the part of Brissot and his friends in the assertion of subordination +and regular government. But Robespierre has survived both these rival +chiefs, and is now the great patron of Jacobin order. + +To balance the exorbitant power of Paris, (which threatened to leave +nothing to the National Convention but a character as insignificant as +that which the first Assembly had assigned to the unhappy Louis the +Sixteenth,) the faction of Brissot, whose leaders were Roland, Pétion, +Vergniaud, Isnard, Condorcet, &c., &c., &c., applied themselves to gain +the great commercial towns, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes, and +Bordeaux. The republicans of the Brissotin description, to whom the +concealed royalists, still very numerous, joined themselves, obtained a +temporary superiority in all these places. In Bordeaux, on account of +the activity and eloquence of some of its representatives, this +superiority was the most distinguished. This last city is seated on the +Garonne, or Gironde; and being the centre of a department named from +that river, the appellation of Girondists was given to the whole party. +These, and some other towns, declared strongly against the principles of +anarchy, and against the despotism of Paris. Numerous addresses were +sent to the Convention, promising to maintain its authority, which the +addressers were pleased to consider as legal and constitutional, though +chosen, not to compose an executive government, but to form a plan for a +Constitution. In the Convention measures were taken to obtain an armed +force from the several departments to maintain the freedom of that body, +and to provide for the personal safety of the members: neither of which, +from the 14th of July, 1789, to this hour, have been really enjoyed by +their assemblies sitting under any denomination. + +This scheme, which was well conceived, had not the desired success. +Paris, from which the Convention did not dare to move, though some +threats of such a departure were from time to time thrown out, was too +powerful for the party of the Gironde. Some of the proposed guards, but +neither with regularity nor in force, did indeed arrive: they were +debauched as fast as they came, or were sent to the frontiers. The game +played by the revolutionists in 1789, with respect to the French guards +of the unhappy king, was now played against the departmental guards, +called together for the protection of the revolutionists. Every part of +their own policy comes round, and strikes at their own power and their +own lives. + +The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in taking the alarm. They +had just reason to apprehend, that, if they permitted the smallest +delay, they should see themselves besieged by an army collected from all +parts of France. Violent threats were thrown out against that city in +the Assembly. Its total destruction was menaced. A very remarkable +expression was used in these debates,--"that in future times it might be +inquired on what part of the Seine Paris had stood." The faction which +ruled in Paris, too bold to be intimidated and too vigilant to be +surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn, they accused the +Girondists of a treasonable design to break _the republic one and +indivisible_ (whose unity they contended could only be preserved by the +supremacy of Paris) into a number of _confederate_ commonwealths. The +Girondin faction on this account received also the name of +_Federalists_. + +Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities. Paris, the mother of +equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this +alternative: either that city must be reduced to a mere member of the +federative republic, or the Convention, chosen, as they said, by all +France, was to be brought regularly and systematically under the +dominion of the Common Hall, and even of any one of the sections of +Paris. + +In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the great mother club of +the Jacobins was entirely in the Parisian interest. The Girondins no +longer dared to show their faces in that assembly. Nine tenths at least +of the Jacobin clubs, throughout France, adhered to the great +patriarchal Jacobinière of Paris, to which they were (to use their own +term) _affiliated_. No authority of magistracy, judicial or executive, +had the least weight, whenever these clubs chose to interfere: and they +chose to interfere in everything, and on every occasion. All hope of +gaining them to the support of property, or to the acknowledgment of any +law but their own will, was evidently vain and hopeless. Nothing but an +armed insurrection against their anarchical authority could answer the +purpose of the Girondins. Anarchy was to be cured by rebellion, as it +had been caused by it. + +As a preliminary to this attempt on the Jacobins and the commons of +Paris, which it was hoped would be supported by all the remaining +property of France, it became absolutely necessary to prepare a +manifesto, laying before the public the whole policy, genius, character, +and conduct of the partisans of club government. To make this exposition +as fully and clearly as it ought to be made, it was of the same +unavoidable necessity to go through a series of transactions, in which +all those concerned in this Revolution were, at the several periods of +their activity, deeply involved. In consequence of this design, and +under these difficulties, Brissot prepared the following declaration of +his party, which he executed with no small ability; and in this manner +the whole mystery of the French Revolution was laid open in all its +parts. + +It is almost needless to mention to the reader the fate of the design to +which this pamphlet was to be subservient. The Jacobins of Paris were +more prompt than their adversaries. They were the readiest to resort to +what La Fayette calls the _most sacred of all duties, that of +insurrection_. Another era of holy insurrection commenced the 31st of +last May. As the first fruits of that insurrection grafted on +insurrection, and of that rebellion improving upon rebellion, the +sacred, irresponsible character of the members of the Convention was +laughed to scorn. They had themselves shown in their proceedings against +the late king how little the most fixed principles are to be relied +upon, in their revolutionary Constitution. The members of the Girondin +party in the Convention were seized upon, or obliged to save themselves +by flight. The unhappy author of this piece, with twenty of his +associates, suffered together on the scaffold, after a trial the +iniquity of which puts all description to defiance. + +The English reader will draw from this work of Brissot, and from the +result of the last struggles of this party, some useful lessons. He will +be enabled to judge of the information of those who have undertaken to +guide and enlighten us, and who, for reasons best known to themselves, +have chosen to paint the French Revolution and its consequences in +brilliant and flattering colors. They will know how to appreciate the +liberty of France, which has been so much magnified in England. They +will do justice to the wisdom and goodness of their sovereign and his +Parliament, who have put them into a state of defence, in the war +audaciously made upon us in favor of that kind of liberty. When we see +(as here we must see) in their true colors the character and policy of +our enemies, our gratitude will become an active principle. It will +produce a strong and zealous coöperation with the efforts of our +government in favor of a Constitution under which we enjoy advantages +the full value of which the querulous weakness of human nature requires +sometimes the opportunity of a comparison to understand and to relish. + +Our confidence in those who watch for the public will not be lessened. +We shall be sensible that to alarm us in the late circumstances of our +affairs was not for our molestation, but for our security. We shall be +sensible that this alarm was not ill-timed,--and that it ought to have +been given, as it was given, before the enemy had time fully to mature +and accomplish their plans for reducing us to the condition of France, +as that condition is faithfully and without exaggeration described in +the following work. We now have our arms in our hands; we have the means +of opposing the sense, the courage, and the resources of England to the +deepest, the most craftily devised, the best combined, and the most +extensive design that ever was carried on, since the beginning of the +world, against all property, all order, all religion, all law, and all +real freedom. + +The reader is requested to attend to the part of this pamphlet which +relates to the conduct of the Jacobins with regard to the Austrian +Netherlands, which they call Belgia or Belgium. It is from page +seventy-two to page eighty-four of this translation. Here their views +and designs upon all their neighbors are fully displayed. Here the whole +mystery of their ferocious politics is laid open with the utmost +clearness. Here the manner in which they would treat every nation into +which they could introduce their doctrines and influence is distinctly +marked. We see that no nation was out of danger, and we see what the +danger was with which every nation was threatened. The writer of this +pamphlet throws the blame of several of the most violent of the +proceedings on the other party. He and his friends, at the time alluded +to, had a majority in the National Assembly. He admits that neither he +nor they _ever publicly_ opposed these measures; but he attributes their +silence to a fear of rendering themselves suspected. It is most certain, +that, whether from fear or from approbation, they never discovered any +dislike of those proceedings till Dumouriez was driven from the +Netherlands. But whatever their motive was, it is plain that the most +violent is, and since the Revolution has always been, the predominant +party. + +If Europe could not be saved without our interposition, (most certainly +it could not,) I am sure there is not an Englishman who would not blush +to be left out of the general effort made in favor of the general +safety. But we are not secondary parties in this war; _we are principals +in the danger, and ought to be principals in the exertion_. If any +Englishman asks whether the designs of the French assassins are confined +to the spot of Europe which they actually desolate, the citizen Brissot, +the author of this book, and the author of the declaration of war +against England, will give him his answer. He will find in this book, +that the republicans are divided into factions full of the most furious +and destructive animosity against each other; but he will find also that +there is one point in which they perfectly agree: that they are all +enemies alike to the government of all other nations, and only contend +with each other about the means of propagating their tenets and +extending their empire by conquest. + +It is true that in this present work, which the author professedly +designed for an appeal to foreign nations and posterity, he has dressed +up the philosophy of his own faction in as decent a garb as he could to +make her appearance in public; but through every disguise her hideous +figure may be distinctly seen. If, however, the reader still wishes to +see her in all her naked deformity, I would further refer him to a +private letter of Brissot, written towards the end of the last year, and +quoted in a late very able pamphlet of Mallet Du Pan. "We must" (says +our philosopher) "_set fire to the four corners of Europe_"; in that +alone is our safety. "_Dumouriez cannot suit us_. I always distrusted +him. Miranda is the general for us: he understands the _revolutionary +power_; he has _courage, lights_," &c.[5] Here everything is fairly +avowed in plain language. The triumph of philosophy is the universal +conflagration of Europe; the only real dissatisfaction with Dumouriez is +a suspicion of his moderation; and the secret motive of that preference +which in this very pamphlet the author gives to Miranda, though without +assigning his reasons, is declared to be the superior fitness of that +foreign adventurer for the purposes of subversion and destruction. On +the other hand, if there can be any man in this country so hardy as to +undertake the defence or the apology of the present monstrous usurpers +of France, and if it should be said in their favor, that it is not just +to credit the charges of their enemy Brissot against them, who have +actually tried and condemned him on the very same charges among others, +we are luckily supplied with the best possible evidence in support of +this part of his book against them: it comes from among themselves. +Camille Desmoulins published the History of the Brissotins in answer to +this very address of Brissot. It was the counter-manifesto of the last +holy revolution of the 31st of May; and the flagitious orthodoxy of his +writings at that period has been admitted in the late scrutiny of him by +the Jacobin Club, when they saved him from that guillotine "which he +grazed." In the beginning of his work he displays "the task of glory," +as he calls it, which presented itself at the opening of the Convention. +All is summed up in two points: "To create the French Republic; _to +disorganize Europe; perhaps to purge it of its tyrants by the eruption +of the volcanic principles of equality_."[6] The coincidence is exact; +the proof is complete and irresistible. + +In a cause like this, and in a time like the present, there is no +neutrality. They who are not actively, and with decision and energy, +against Jacobinism are its partisans. They who do not dread it love it. +It cannot be viewed with indifference. It is a thing made to produce a +powerful impression on the feelings. Such is the nature of Jacobinism, +such is the nature of man, that this system must be regarded either with +enthusiastic admiration, or with the highest degree of detestation, +resentment, and horror. + +Another great lesson may be taught by this book, and by the fortune of +the author and his party: I mean a lesson drawn from the consequences of +engaging in daring innovations from an hope that we may be able to limit +their mischievous operation at our pleasure, and by our policy to secure +ourselves against the effect of the evil examples we hold out to the +world. This lesson is taught through almost all the important pages of +history; but never has it been taught so clearly and so awfully as at +this hour. The revolutionists who have just suffered an ignominious +death, under the sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, (a tribunal +composed of those with whom they had triumphed in the total destruction +of the ancient government,) were by no means ordinary men, or without +very considerable talents and resources. But with all their talents and +resources, and the apparent momentary extent of their power, we see the +fate of their projects, their power, and their persons. We see before +our eyes the absurdity of thinking to establish order upon principles of +confusion, or with the materials and instruments of rebellion to build +up a solid and stable government. + +Such partisans of a republic amongst us as may not have the worst +intentions will see that the principles, the plans, the manners, the +morals, and the whole system of France is altogether as adverse to the +formation and duration of any rational scheme of a republic as it is to +that of a monarchy, absolute or limited. It is, indeed, a system which +can only answer the purposes of robbers and murderers. + +The translator has only to say for himself, that he has found some +difficulty in this version. His original author, through haste, perhaps, +or through the perturbation of a mind filled with a great and arduous +enterprise, is often obscure. There are some passages, too, in which his +language requires to be first translated into French,--at least into +such French as the Academy would in former times have tolerated. He +writes with great force and vivacity; but the language, like everything +else in his country, has undergone a revolution. The translator thought +it best to be as literal as possible, conceiving such a translation +would perhaps be the most fit to convey the author's peculiar mode of +thinking. In this way the translator has no credit for style, but he +makes it up in fidelity. Indeed, the facts and observations are so much +more important than the style, that no apology is wanted for producing +them in any intelligible manner. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding +Monday.--TRANSLATOR. + +[3] Letter to the National Assembly, signed, _The Minister of the +Interior_, ROLAND; dated Paris, Sept. 3rd, _4th year of Liberty_. + +[4] See p. 12 and p. 13 of this translation. + +[5] See the translation of Mallet Du Pan's work, printed for Owen, p. +53. + +[6] See the translation of the History of the Brissotins by Camille +Desmoulins, printed for Owen, p. 2. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + [The Address of M. Brissot to his Constituents being now almost + forgotten, it has been thought right to add, as an Appendix, + that part of it to which Mr. Burke points our particular + attention and upon which he so forcibly comments in his + Preface.] + + +Three sorts of anarchy have ruined our affairs in Belgium. + +The anarchy of the administration of Pache, which has completely +disorganized the supply of our armies; which by that disorganization +reduced the army of Dumouriez to stop in the middle of its conquests; +which struck it motionless through the months of November and December; +which hindered it from joining Beurnonville and Custine, and from +forcing the Prussians and Austrians to repass the Rhine, and afterwards +from putting themselves in a condition to invade Holland sooner than +they did. + +To this state of ministerial anarchy it is necessary to join that other +anarchy which disorganized the troops, and occasioned their habits of +pillage; and lastly, that anarchy which created the revolutionary power, +and forced the union to France of the countries we had invaded, before +things were ripe for such a measure. + +Who could, however, doubt the frightful evils that were occasioned in +our armies by that doctrine of anarchy which, under the shadow of +equality of _right_, would establish equality of fact? This is universal +equality, the scourge of society, as the other is the support of +society: an anarchical doctrine which would level all things, talents +and ignorance, virtues and vices, places, usages, and services; a +doctrine which begot that fatal project of organizing the army, +presented by Dubois de Crancé, to which it will be indebted for a +complete disorganization. + +Mark the date of the presentation of the system of this equality of +fact, entire equality. It had been projected and decreed even at the +very opening of the Dutch campaign. If any project could encourage the +want of discipline in the soldiers, any scheme could disgust and banish +good officers, and throw all things into confusion at the moment when +order alone could give victory, it is this project, in truth, so +stubbornly defended by the anarchists, and transplanted into their +ordinary tactic. + +How could they expect that there should exist any discipline, any +subordination, when even in the camp they permit motions, censures, and +denunciations of officers and of generals? Does not such a disorder +destroy all the respect that is due to superiors, and all the mutual +confidence without which success cannot be hoped for? For the spirit of +distrust makes the soldier suspicious, and intimidates the general. The +first discerns treason in every danger; the second, always placed +between the necessity of conquest and the image of the scaffold, dares +not raise himself to bold conception, and those heights of courage which +electrify an army and insure victory. Turenne, in our time, would have +carried his head to the scaffold; for he was sometimes beat: but the +reason why he more frequently conquered was, that his discipline was +severe; it was, that his soldiers, confiding in his talents, never +muttered discontent instead of fighting. Without reciprocal confidence +between the soldier and the general, there can be no army, no victory, +especially in a free government. + +Is it not to the same system of anarchy, of equalization, and want of +subordination, which has been recommended in some clubs and defended +even in the Convention, that we owe the pillages, the murders, the +enormities of all kinds, which it was difficult for the officers to put +a stop to, from the general spirit of insubordination,--excesses which +have rendered the French name odious to the Belgians? Again, is it not +to this system of anarchy, and of robbery, that we are indebted for the +_revolutionary power_, which has so justly aggravated the hatred of the +Belgians against France? + +What did enlightened republicans think before the 10th of August, men +who wished for liberty, _not only for their own country, but for all +Europe? They believed that they could generally establish it by exciting +the governed against the governors, in letting the people see the +facility and the advantages of such insurrections_. + +But how can the people be led to that point? By the example of good +government established among us; by the example of order; by the care of +spreading nothing but moral ideas among them: to respect their +properties and their rights; to respect their prejudices, even when we +combat them: by disinterestedness in defending the people; by a zeal to +extend the spirit of liberty amongst them. + +This system was at first followed.[7] Excellent pamphlets from the pen +of Condorcet prepared the people for liberty; the 10th of August, the +republican decrees, the battle of Valmy, the retreat of the Prussians, +the victory of Jemappes, all spoke in favor of France: all was rapidly +destroyed by _the revolutionary power_. Without doubt, good intentions +made the majority of the Assembly adopt it; they would plant the tree of +liberty in a foreign soil, under the shade of a people already free. To +the eyes of the people of Belgium it seemed but the mask of a new +foreign tyranny. This opinion was erroneous; I will suppose it so for a +moment; but still this opinion of Belgium deserved to be considered. In +general, we have always considered our own opinions and our own +intentions rather than the people whose cause we defend. We have given +those people a will: that is to say, we have more than ever alienated +them from liberty. + +How could the Belgic people believe themselves free, since we exercise +for them, and over them, the rights of sovereignty,--when, without +consulting them, we suppress, all in a mass, their ancient usages, their +abuses, their prejudices, those classes of society which without doubt +are contrary to the spirit of liberty, but the utility of whose +destruction was not as yet proved to them? How could they believe +themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we +thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they +believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship, +which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their +liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when +we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice +of seeing them govern; when we seized their revenues, their domains, and +riches, to the profit of the nation; when we carried to the very censer +those hands which they regarded as profane? Doubtless these operations +were founded on principles; but those principles ought to have had the +consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice; +otherwise they necessarily became our most cruel enemies. + +Arrived ourselves at the last bounds of liberty and equality, trampling +under our feet all human superstitions, (after, however, a four years' +war with them,) we attempt all at once to raise to the same eminence +men, strangers even to the first elementary principles of liberty, and +plunged for fifteen hundred years in ignorance and superstition; we +wished to force men to see, when a thick cataract covered their eyes, +even before we had removed that cataract; we would force men to see, +whose dulness of character had raised a mist before their eyes, and +before that character was altered.[8] + +Do you believe that the doctrine which now prevails in France would have +found many partisans among us in 1789? No: a revolution in ideas and in +prejudices is not made with that rapidity; it moves gradually; it does +not escalade. + +Philosophy does not inspire by violence, nor by seduction; nor is it the +sword that begets love of liberty. + +Joseph the Second also borrowed the language of philosophy, when he +wished to suppress the monks in Belgium, and to seize upon their +revenues. There was seen on him a mask only of philosophy, covering the +hideous countenance of a greedy despot; and the people ran to arms. +Nothing better than another kind of despotism has been seen in the +_revolutionary power_. + +We have seen in the commissioners of the National Convention nothing but +proconsuls working the mine of Belgium for the profit of the French +nation, seeking to conquer it for the sovereign of Paris,--either to +aggrandize his empire, or to share the burdens of the debts, and furnish +a rich prize to the robbers who domineered in France. + +Do you believe the Belgians have ever been the dupes of those +well-rounded periods which they vended in the pulpit in order to +familiarize them to the idea of an union with France? Do you believe +they were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions, made by what +is called acclamation, for their union, of which corruption paid one +part,[9] and fear forced the remainder? Who, at this time of day, is +unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show? +_Who does not know the farces of primary assemblies, composed of a +president, of a secretary, and of some assistants, whose day's work was +paid for?_ No: it is not by means which belong only to thieves and +despots that the foundations of liberty can be laid in an enslaved +country. It is not by those means, that a new-born republic, a people +who know not yet the elements of republican governments, can be united +to us. Even slaves do not suffer themselves to be seduced by such +artifices; and if they have not the strength to resist, they have at +least the sense to know how to appreciate the value of such an attempt. + +If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their +minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not +despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to +perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of +superstition, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for +this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they +incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty +thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to +France the specie of which she stood in need. + +But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our +army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium? +Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our +hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the +penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No! +despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted +into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from +that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the +grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed +their new tyrants. Our commissioners address them in this sort: "You +have nobles and priests among you: drive them out without delay, or we +will neither be your brethren nor your patrons." They answered: "Give us +but time; only leave to us the care of reforming these institutions." +Our answer to them was: "No! it must be at the moment, it must be on the +spot; or we will treat you as enemies, we will abandon you to the +resentment of the Austrians." + +What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they +were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and +to bow down their heads before their masters. They did hold their +tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free assent. + +Have not the strangest artifices been adopted to prevent that people +from retreating, and to constrain them to an union? It was foreseen, +that, as long as they were unable to effect an union, the States would +preserve the supreme authority amongst themselves. Under pretence, +therefore, of relieving the people, and of exercising the sovereignty in +their right, at one stroke they abolished all the duties and taxes, they +shut up all the treasuries. From that time no more receipts, no more +public money, no more means of paying the salaries of any man in office +appointed by the States. Thus was anarchy organized amongst the people, +that they might be compelled to throw themselves into our arms. It +became necessary for those who administered their affairs, under the +penalty of being exposed to sedition, and in order to avoid their +throats being cut, to have recourse to the treasury of France. What did +they find in this treasury? ASSIGNATS.--These assignats were advanced at +par to Belgium. By this means, on the one hand, they naturalized this +currency in that country, and on the other, they expected to make a good +pecuniary transaction. Thus it is that covetousness cut its throat with +its own hands. _The Belgians have seen in this forced introduction of +assignats nothing but a double robbery_; and they have only the more +violently hated the union with France. + +Recollect the solicitude of the Belgians on that subject. With what +earnestness did they conjure you to take off a retroactive effect from +these assignats, and to prevent them from being applied to the payment +of debts that were contracted anterior to the union! + +Did not this language energetically enough signify that they looked +upon the assignats as a leprosy, and the union as a deadly contagion? + +And yet what regard was paid to so just a demand? It was buried in the +Committee of Finance. That committee wanted to make anarchy the means of +an union. They only busied themselves in making the Belgic Provinces +subservient to their finances. + +Cambon said loftily before the Belgians themselves: The Belgian war +costs us hundreds of millions. Their ordinary revenues, and even some +extraordinary taxes, will not answer to our reimbursements; and yet we +have occasion for them. The mortgage of our assignats draws near its +end. What must be done? Sell the Church property of Brabant. There is a +mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling). How shall +we get possession of them? By an immediate union. Instantly they decreed +this union. Men's minds were not disposed to it. What does it signify? +Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they +secretly order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to dispose of four or +five hundred thousand livres (20,000_l._ sterling) _to make the +vagabonds of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the union in all +the States_. But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak +minority in our favor. What does that signify? _Revolutions_, said they, +_are made only by minorities. It is the minority which has made the +Revolution of France; it is a minority which, has made the people +triumph_. + +The Belgic Provinces were not sufficient to satisfy the voracious +cravings of this financial system. Cambon wanted to unite everything, +that he might sell everything. Thus he forced the union of Savoy. In +the war with Holland, he saw nothing but gold to seize on, and +assignats to sell at par.[11] "Do not let us dissemble," said he one day +to the Committee of General Defence, in presence even of the patriot +deputies of Holland, "you have no ecclesiastical goods to offer us for +our indemnity. IT IS A REVOLUTION IN THEIR COUNTERS AND IRON CHESTS[12] +that must be made amongst the DUTCH." The word was said, and the bankers +Abema and Van Staphorst understood it. + +Do you think that that word has not been worth an army to the +Stadtholder? that it has not cooled the ardor of the Dutch patriots? +that it has not commanded the vigorous defence of Williamstadt? + +Do you believe that the patriots of Amsterdam, when they read the +preparatory decree which gave France an execution on their goods,--do +you believe that those patriots would not have liked better to have +remained under the government of the Stadtholder, who took from them no +more than a fixed portion of their property, than to pass under that of +a revolutionary power, which would make a complete revolution in their +bureaus and strong-boxes, and reduce them to wretchedness and rags?[13] +Robbery and anarchy, instead of encouraging, will always stifle +revolutions. + +"But why," they object to me, "have not you and your friends chosen to +expose these measures in the rostrum of the National Convention? Why +have you not opposed yourself to all these fatal projects of union?" + +There are two answers to make here,--one general, one particular. + +You complain of the silence of honest men! You quite forget, then, +honest men are the objects of your suspicion. Suspicion, if it does not +stain the soul of a courageous man, at least arrests his thoughts in +their passage to his lips. The suspicions of a good citizen freeze those +men whom the calumny of the wicked could not stop in their progress. + +You complain of their silence! You forget, then, that you have often +established an insulting equality between them and men covered with +crimes and made up of ignominy. + +You forget, then, that you have twenty times left them covered with +opprobrium by your galleries. + +You forget, then, that you have not thought yourself sufficiently +powerful to impose silence upon these galleries. + +What ought a wise man to do in the midst of these circumstances? He is +silent. He waits the moment when the passions give way; he waits till +reason shall preside, and till the multitude shall listen to her voice. + +What has been the tactic displayed during all these unions? Cambon, +incapable of political calculation, boasting his ignorance in the +diplomatic, flattering the ignorant multitude, lending his name and +popularity to the anarchists, seconded by their vociferations, denounced +incessantly, as counter-revolutionists, those intelligent persons who +were desirous at least of having things discussed. To oppose the acts of +union appeared to Cambon an overt act of treason. The wish so much as to +reflect and to deliberate was in his eyes a great crime. He calumniated +our intentions. The voice of every deputy, especially my voice, would +infallibly have been stifled. There were spies on the very monosyllables +that escaped our lips. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The most seditious libels upon all governments, in order to excite +insurrection in Spain, Holland, and other countries,--TRANSLATOR. + +[8] It may not be amiss, once for all, to remark on the style of all the +philosophical politicians of France. Without any distinction in their +several sects and parties, they agree in treating all nations who will +not conform their government, laws, manners, and religion to the new +French fashion, as _an herd of slaves_. They consider the content with +which men live under those governments as stupidity, and all attachment +to religion as the effect of the grossest ignorance. + +The people of the Netherlands, by their Constitution, are as much +entitled to be called free as any nation upon earth. The Austrian +government (until some wild attempts the Emperor Joseph made on the +French principle, but which have been since abandoned by the court of +Vienna) has been remarkably mild. No people were more at their ease than +the Flemish subjects, particularly the lower classes. It is curious to +hear this great oculist talk of couching the _cataract_ by which the +Netherlands were _blinded_, and hindered from seeing in its proper +colors the beautiful vision of the French republic, which he has himself +painted with so masterly an hand. That people must needs be dull, blind, +and brutalized by fifteen hundred years of superstition, (the time +elapsed since the introduction of Christianity amongst them,) who could +prefer their former state to the _present state of France_! The reader +will remark, that the only difference between Brissot and his +adversaries is in the _mode_ of bringing other nations into the pale of +the French republic. _They_ would abolish the order and classes of +society, and all religion, at a stroke: Brissot would have just the same +thing done, but with more address and management.--TRANSLATOR. + +[9] See the correspondence of Dumouriez, especially the letter of the +12th of March. + +[10] They have not as yet proceeded farther with regard to the English +dominions. Here we only see as yet _the good writings_ of Paine, and of +his learned associates, and the labors of the _missionary clubs_, and +other zealous instructors.--TRANSLATOR. + +[11] The same thing will happen in Savoy. The persecution of the clergy +has soured people's minds. The commissaries represent them to us as good +Frenchmen. I put them to the proof. Where are the legions? How! thirty +thousand Savoyards,--are they not armed to defend, in concert with us, +their liberty?--BRISSOT. + +[12] _Portefeuille_ is the word in the original. It signifies all +movable property which may be represented in bonds, notes, bills, +stocks, or any sort of public or private securities. I do not know of a +single word in English that answers it: I have therefore substituted +that of _Iron Chests_, as coming nearest to the idea.--TRANSLATOR. + +[13] In the original _les reduire à la sansculotterie_. + + + + +A + +LETTER + +TO + +WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., + +OCCASIONED BY + +THE ACCOUNT GIVEN IN A NEWSPAPER OF THE SPEECH MADE IN THE HOUSE OF +LORDS BY THE **** OF ******* + +IN THE DEBATE + +CONCERNING LORD FITZWILLIAM. + +1795. + + + + +LETTER. + + +BEACONSFIELD, May 28,1795. + +My dear sir,--I have been told of the voluntary which, for the +entertainment of the House of Lords, has been lately played by his Grace +the **** of *******, a great deal at my expense, and a little at his +own. I confess I should have liked the composition rather better, if it +had been quite new. But every man has his taste, and his Grace is an +admirer of ancient music. + +There may be sometimes too much even of a good thing. A toast is good, +and a bumper is not bad: but the best toasts may be so often repeated as +to disgust the palate, and ceaseless rounds of bumpers may nauseate and +overload the stomach. The ears of the most steady-voting politicians may +at last be stunned with "three times three." I am sure I have been very +grateful for the flattering remembrance made of me in the toasts of the +Revolution Society, and of other clubs formed on the same laudable plan. +After giving the brimming honors to Citizen Thomas Paine and to Citizen +Dr. Priestley, the gentlemen of these clubs seldom failed to bring me +forth in my turn, and to drink, "Mr. Burke, and thanks to him for the +discussion he has provoked." + +I found myself elevated with this honor; for, even by the collision of +resistance, to be the means of striking out sparkles of truth, if not +merit, is at least felicity. + +Here I might have rested. But when I found that the great advocate, Mr. +Erskine, condescended to resort to these bumper toasts, as the pure and +exuberant fountains of politics and of rhetoric, (as I hear he did, in +three or four speeches made in defence of certain worthy citizens,) I +was rather let down a little. Though still somewhat proud of myself, I +was not quite so proud of my voucher. Though he is no idolater of fame, +in some way or other Mr. Erskine will always do himself honor. Methinks, +however, in following the precedents of these toasts, he seemed to do +more credit to his diligence as a special pleader than to his invention +as an orator. To those who did not know the abundance of his resources, +both of genius and erudition, there was something in it that indicated +the want of a good assortment, with regard to richness and variety, in +the magazine of topics and commonplaces which I suppose he keeps by him, +in imitation of Cicero and other renowned declaimers of antiquity. + +Mr. Erskine supplied something, I allow, from the stores of his +imagination, in metamorphosing the jovial toasts of clubs into solemn +special arguments at the bar. So far the thing showed talent: however, I +must still prefer the bar of the tavern to the other bar. The toasts at +the first hand were better than the arguments at the second. Even when +the toasts began to grow old as sarcasms, they were washed down with +still older pricked election Port; then the acid of the wine made some +amends for the want of anything piquant in the wit. But when his Grace +gave them a second transformation, and brought out the vapid stuff +which had wearied the clubs and disgusted the courts, the drug made up +of the bottoms of rejected bottles, all smelling so wofully of the cork +and of the cask, and of everything except the honest old lamp, and when +that sad draught had been farther infected with the jail pollution of +the Old Bailey, and was dashed and brewed and ineffectually stummed +again into a senatorial exordium in the House of Lords, I found all the +high flavor and mantling of my honors tasteless, flat, and stale. +Unluckily, the new tax on wine is felt even in the greatest fortunes, +and his Grace submits to take up with the heel-taps of Mr. Erskine. + +I have had the ill or good fortune to provoke two great men of this age +to the publication of their opinions: I mean Citizen Thomas Paine, and +his Grace the **** of *******. I am not so great a leveller as to put +these two great men on a par, either in the state, or the republic of +letters; but "the field of glory is a field for all." It is a large one, +indeed; and we all may run, God knows where, in chase of glory, over the +boundless expanse of that wild heath whose horizon always flies before +us. I assure his Grace, (if he will yet give me leave to call him so,) +whatever may be said on the authority of the clubs or of the bar, that +Citizen Paine (who, they will have it, hunts with me in couples, and who +only moves as I drag him along) has a sufficient activity in his own +native benevolence to dispose and enable him to take the lead for +himself. He is ready to blaspheme his God, to insult his king, and to +libel the Constitution of his country, without any provocation from me +or any encouragement from his Grace. I assure him that I shall not be +guilty of the injustice of charging Mr. Paine's next work against +religion and human society upon his Grace's excellent speech in the +House of Lords. I farther assure this noble Duke that I neither +encouraged nor provoked that worthy citizen to seek for plenty, liberty, +safety, justice, or lenity, in the famine, in the prisons, in the +decrees of Convention, in the revolutionary tribunal, and in the +guillotine of Paris, rather than quietly to take up with what he could +find in the glutted markets, the unbarricadoed streets, the drowsy Old +Bailey judges, or, at worst, the airy, wholesome pillory of Old England. +The choice of country was his own taste. The writings were the effects +of his own zeal. In spite of his friend Dr. Priestley, he was a free +agent. I admit, indeed, that my praises of the British government, +loaded with all its incumbrances, clogged with its peers and its beef, +its parsons and its pudding, its commons and its beer, and its dull +slavish liberty of going about just as one pleases, had something to +provoke a jockey of Norfolk,[14] who was inspired with the resolute +ambition of becoming a citizen of France, to do something which might +render him worthy of naturalization in that grand asylum of persecuted +merit, something which should entitle him to a place in the senate of +the adoptive country of all the gallant, generous, and humane. This, I +say, was possible. But the truth is, (with great deference to his Grace +I say it,) Citizen Paine acted without any provocation at all; he acted +solely from the native impulses of his own excellent heart. + +His Grace, like an able orator, as he is, begins with giving me a great +deal of praise for talents which I do not possess. He does this to +entitle himself, on the credit of this gratuitous kindness, to +exaggerate my abuse of the parts which his bounty, and not that of +Nature, has bestowed upon me. In this, too, he has condescended to copy +Mr. Erskine. These priests (I hope they will excuse me, I mean priests +of the Rights of Man) begin by crowning me with their flowers and their +fillets, and bedewing me with their odors, as a preface to their +knocking me on the head with their consecrated axes. I have injured, say +they, the Constitution; and I have abandoned the Whig party and the Whig +principles that I professed. I do not mean, my dear Sir, to defend +myself against his Grace. I have not much interest in what the world +shall think or say of me; as little has the world an interest in what I +shall think or say of any one in it; and I wish that his Grace had +suffered an unhappy man to enjoy, in his retreat, the melancholy +privileges of obscurity and sorrow. At any rate, I have spoken and I +have written on the subject. If I have written or spoken so poorly as to +be quite forgot, a fresh apology will not make a more lasting +impression. "I must let the tree lie as it falls." Perhaps I must take +some shame to myself. I confess that I have acted on my own principles +of government, and not on those of his Grace, which are, I dare say, +profound and wise, but which I do not pretend to understand. As to the +party to which he alludes, and which has long taken its leave of me, I +believe the principles of the book which he condemns are very +conformable to the opinions of many of the most considerable and most +grave in that description of politicians. A few, indeed, who, I admit, +are equally respectable in all points, differ from me, and talk his +Grace's language. I am too feeble to contend with them. They have the +field to themselves. There are others, very young and very ingenious +persons, who form, probably, the largest part of what his Grace, I +believe, is pleased to consider as that party. Some of them were not +born into the world, and all of them were children, when I entered into +that connection. I give due credit to the censorial brow, to the broad +phylacteries, and to the imposing gravity of those magisterial rabbins +and doctors in the cabala of political science. I admit that "wisdom is +as the gray hair to man, and that learning is like honorable old age." +But, at a time when liberty is a good deal talked of, perhaps I might be +excused, if I caught something of the general indocility. It might not +be surprising, if I lengthened my chain a link or two, and, in an age of +relaxed discipline, gave a trifling indulgence to my own notions. If +that could be allowed, perhaps I might sometimes (by accident, and +without an unpardonable crime) trust as much to my own very careful and +very laborious, though perhaps somewhat purblind disquisitions, as to +their soaring, intuitive, eagle-eyed authority. But the modern liberty +is a precious thing. It must not be profaned by too vulgar an use. It +belongs only to the chosen few, who are born to the hereditary +representation of the whole democracy, and who leave nothing at all, no, +not the offal, to us poor outcasts of the plebeian race. + +Amongst those gentlemen who came to authority as soon or sooner than +they came of age I do not mean to include his Grace. With all those +native titles to empire over our minds which distinguish the others, he +has a large share of experience. He certainly ought to understand the +British Constitution better than I do. He has studied it in the +fundamental part. For one election I have seen, he has been concerned in +twenty. Nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his +speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend +with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With +thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles +been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst +he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has +he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great +sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, the independence, +and the sobriety of elections, and to give a check, if possible, to the +ruinous charges that go nearly to the destruction of the right of +election itself. + +Amidst these his labors, his Grace will be pleased to forgive me, if my +zeal, less enlightened, to be sure, than his by midnight lamps and +studies, has presumed to talk too favorably of this Constitution, and +even to say something sounding like approbation of that body which has +the honor to reckon his Grace at the head of it, Those who dislike this +partiality, or, if his Grace pleases, this flattery of mine, have a +comfort at hand. I may be refuted and brought to shame by the most +convincing of all refutations, a practical refutation. Every individual +peer for himself may show that I was ridiculously wrong; the whole body +of those noble persons may refute me for the whole corps. If they +please, they are more powerful advocates against themselves than a +thousand scribblers like me can be in their favor. If I were even +possessed of those powers which his Grace, in order to heighten my +offence, is pleased to attribute to me, there would be little +difference. The eloquence of Mr. Erskine might save Mr. ***** from the +gallows, but no eloquence could save Mr. Jackson from the effects of his +own potion. + +In that unfortunate book of mine, which is put in the _Index +Expurgatorius_ of the modern Whigs, I might have spoken too favorably +not only of those who wear coronets, but of those who wear crowns. +Kings, however, have not only long arms, but strong ones too. A great +Northern potentate, for instance, is able in one moment, and with one +bold stroke of his diplomatic pen, to efface all the volumes which I +could write in a century, or which the most laborious publicists of +Germany ever carried to the fair of Leipsic, as an apology for monarchs +and monarchy. Whilst I, or any other poor, puny, private sophist, was +defending the Declaration of Pilnitz, his Majesty might refute me by the +Treaty of Basle. Such a monarch may destroy one republic because it had +a king at its head, and he may balance this extraordinary act by +founding another republic that has cut off the head of its king. I +defended that great potentate for associating in a grand alliance for +the preservation of the old governments of Europe; but he puts me to +silence by delivering up all those governments (his own virtually +included) to the new system of France. If he is accused before the +Parisian tribunal (constituted for the trial of kings) for having +polluted the soil of liberty by the tracks of his disciplined slaves, he +clears himself by surrendering the finest parts of Germany (with a +handsome cut of his own territories) to the offended majesty of the +regicides of France. Can I resist this? Am I responsible for it, if, +with a torch in his hand, and a rope about his neck, he makes _amende +honorable_ to the _sans-culotterie_ of the Republic one and indivisible? +In that humiliating attitude, in spite of my protests, he may supplicate +pardon for his menacing proclamations, and, as an expiation to those +whom he failed to terrify with his threats, he may abandon those whom he +had seduced by his promises. He may sacrifice the royalists of France, +whom he had called to his standard, as a salutary example to those who +shall adhere to their native sovereign, or shall confide in any other +who undertakes the cause of oppressed kings and of loyal subjects. + +How can I help it, if this high-minded prince will subscribe to the +invectives which the regicides have made against all kings, and +particularly against himself? How can I help it, if this royal +propagandist will preach the doctrine of the Rights of Men? Is it my +fault, if his professors of literature read lectures on that code in all +his academies, and if all the pensioned managers of the newspapers in +his dominions diffuse it throughout Europe in an hundred journals? Can +it be attributed to me, if he will initiate all his grenadiers and all +his hussars in these high mysteries? Am I responsible, if he will make +_Le Droit de l'Homme_, or _La Souverainté du Peuple_ the favorite parole +of his military orders? Now that his troops are to act with the brave +legions of freedom, no doubt he will fit them for their fraternity. He +will teach the Prussians to think, to feel, and to act like them, and to +emulate the glories of the _régiment de l'échafaud_. He will employ the +illustrious Citizen Santerre, the general of his new allies, to instruct +the dull Germans how they shall conduct themselves towards persons who, +like Louis the Sixteenth, (whose cause and person he once took into his +protection,) shall dare, without the sanction of the people, or with it, +to consider themselves as hereditary kings. Can I arrest this great +potentate in his career of glory? Am I blamable in recommending virtue +and religion as the true foundation of all monarchies, because the +protector of the three religions of the Westphalian arrangement, to +ingratiate himself with the Republic of Philosophy, shall abolish all +the three? It is not in my power to prevent the grand patron of the +Reformed Church, if he chooses it, from annulling the Calvinistic +sabbath, and establishing the _décadi_ of atheism in all his states. He +may even renounce and abjure his favorite mysticism in the Temple of +Reason. In these things, at least, he is truly despotic. He has now +shaken hands with everything which at first had inspired him with +horror. It would be curious indeed to see (what I shall not, however, +travel so far to see) the ingenious devices and the elegant +transparencies which, on the restoration of peace and the commencement +of Prussian liberty, are to decorate Potsdam and Charlottenburg +_festeggianti_. What shades of his armed ancestors of the House of +Brandenburg will the committee of _Illuminés_ raise up in the +opera-house of Berlin, to dance a grand ballet in the rejoicings for +this auspicious event? Is it a grand master of the Teutonic order, or is +it the great Elector? Is it the first king of Prussia, or the last? or +is the whole long line (long, I mean, _a parte ante_) to appear like +Banquo's royal procession in the tragedy of Macbeth? + +How can I prevent all these arts of royal policy, and all these displays +of royal magnificence? How can I prevent the successor of Frederick the +Great from aspiring to a new, and, in this age, unexampled kind of +glory? Is it in my power to say that he shall not make his confessions +in the style of St. Austin or of Rousseau? that he shall not assume the +character of the penitent and flagellant, and, grafting monkery on +philosophy, strip himself of his regal purple, clothe his gigantic limbs +in the sackcloth and the _hair-shirt_, and exercise on his broad +shoulders the disciplinary scourge of the holy order of the +_Sans-Culottes_? It is not in me to hinder kings from making new orders +of religious and martial knighthood. I am not Hercules enough to uphold +those orbs which the Atlases of the world are so desirous of shifting +from their weary shoulders. What can be done against the magnanimous +resolution of the great to accomplish the degradation and the ruin of +their own character and situation? + +What I say of the German princes, that I say of all the other dignities +and all the other institutions of the Holy Roman Empire. If they have a +mind to destroy themselves, they may put their advocates to silence and +their advisers to shame. I have often praised the Aulic Council. It is +very true, I did so. I thought it a tribunal as well formed as human +wisdom could form a tribunal for coercing the great, the rich, and the +powerful,--for obliging them to submit their necks to the imperial laws, +and to those of Nature and of nations: a tribunal well conceived for +extirpating peculation, corruption, and oppression from all the parts of +that vast, heterogeneous mass, called the Germanic body. I should not be +inclined to retract these praises upon any of the ordinary lapses into +which human infirmity will fall; they might still stand, though some of +their _conclusums_ should taste of the prejudices of country or of +faction, whether political or religious. Some degree even of corruption +should not make me think them guilty of suicide; but if we could suppose +that the Aulic Council, not regarding duty or even common decorum, +listening neither to the secret admonitions of conscience nor to the +public voice of fame, some of the members basely abandoning their post, +and others continuing in it only the more infamously to betray it, +should give a judgment so shameless and so prostitute, of such monstrous +and even portentous corruption, that no example in the history of human +depravity, or even in the fictions of poetic imagination, could possibly +match it,--if it should be a judgment which, with cold, unfeeling +cruelty, after long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent +people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of +the finest countries upon earth to ravage and desolation,--does any one +think that any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and bullying +insolence of their own, can save them from the ruin that must fell on +all institutions of dignity or of authority that are perverted from +their purport to the oppression of human nature in others and to its +disgrace in themselves? As the wisdom of men mates such institutions, +the folly of men destroys them. Whatever we may pretend, there is always +more in the soundness of the materials than in the fashion of the work. +The order of a good building is something. But if it be wholly declined +from its perpendicular, if the cement is loose and incoherent, if the +stones are scaling with every change of the weather, and the whole +toppling on our heads, what matter is it whether we are crushed by a +Corinthian or a Doric ruin? The fine form of a vessel is a matter of use +and of delight. It is pleasant to see her decorated with cost and art. +But what signifies even the mathematical truth of her form,--what +signify all the art and cost with which she can be carved, and painted, +and gilded, and covered with decorations from stem to stern,--what +signify all her rigging and sails, her flags, her pendants, and her +streamers,--what signify even her cannon, her stores, and her +provisions, if all her planks and timbers be unsound and rotten? + + Quamvis Pontica pinus, + Silvæ filia nobilis, + Jactes et genus et nomen inutile. + +I have been stimulated, I know not how, to give you this trouble by what +very few except myself would think worth any trouble at all. In a speech +in the House of Lords, I have been attacked for the defence of a scheme +of government in which that body inheres, and in which alone it can +exist. Peers of Great Britain may become as penitent as the sovereign of +Prussia. They may repent of what they have done in assertion of the +honor of their king, and in favor of their own safety. But never the +gloom that lowers over the fortune of the cause, nor anything which the +great may do towards hastening their own fall, can make me repent of +what I have done by pen or voice (the only arms I possess) in favor of +the order of things into which I was born and in which I fondly hoped to +die. + +In the long series of ages which have furnished the matter of history, +never was so beautiful and so august a spectacle presented to the moral +eye as Europe afforded the day before the Revolution in France. I knew, +indeed, that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own +danger. In one part of the society it caused laxity and debility; in the +other it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false philosophy +passed from academies into courts; and the great themselves were +infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, +which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed +solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused, +weakened, and perverted. General wealth loosened morals, relaxed +vigilance, and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in +the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions +of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they found +their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public +estimate) of their own worth. When it was once discovered by the +Revolution in France that a struggle between establishment and rapacity +could be maintained, though but for one year and in one place, I was +sure that a practicable breach was made in the whole order of things, +and in every country. Religion, that held the materials of the fabric +together, was first systematically loosened. All other opinions, under +the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left +undefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt +cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish arms for defence. I knew, that, +attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action +by vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon authority alone. It +wanted some other support than the poise of its own gravity. Situations +formerly supported persons. It now became necessary that personal +qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was +found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, +to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in the +sanctuary of government something should be disclosed not only +venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full of +virtue and full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making it +appear to the world that a generous cause was to be asserted, one fit +for a generous people to engage in. From passive submission was it to +expect resolute defence? No! It must have warm advocates and passionate +defenders, which an heavy, discontented acquiescence never could +produce. What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated body +of authority to say, or to act as if it said, "I will put my trust, not +in my own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in +indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious +humors, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining +yourselves." + +I wished to warn the people against the greatest of all evils,--a blind +and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform. I was, +indeed, well aware that power rarely reforms itself. So it is, +undoubtedly, when all is quiet about it. But I was in hopes that +provident fear might prevent fruitless penitence. I trusted that danger +might produce at least circumspection. I flattered myself, in a moment +like this, that nothing would be added to make authority +top-heavy,--that the very moment of an earthquake would not be the time +chosen for adding a story to our houses. I hoped to see the surest of +all reforms, perhaps the only sure reform,--the ceasing to do ill. In +the mean time I wished to the people the wisdom of knowing how to +tolerate a condition which none of their efforts can render much more +than tolerable. It was a condition, however, in which everything was to +be found that could enable them to live to Nature, and, if so they +pleased, to live to virtue and to honor. + +I do not repent that I thought better of those to whom I wished well +than they will suffer me long to think that they deserved. Far from +repenting, I would to God that new faculties had been called up in me, +in favor not of this or that man, or this or that system, but of the +general, vital principle, that, whilst it was in its vigor, produced the +state of things transmitted to us from our fathers, but which, through +the joint operation of the abuses of authority and liberty, may perish +in our hands. I am not of opinion that the race of men, and the +commonwealths they create, like the bodies of individuals, grow effete +and languid and bloodless, and ossify, by the necessities of their own +conformation, and the fatal operation of longevity and time. These +analogies between bodies natural and politic, though they may sometimes +illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves. They are but +too often used, under the color of a specious philosophy, to find +apologies for the despair of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse +the want of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call +for them the more loudly. + +How often has public calamity been arrested on the very brink of ruin by +the seasonable energy of a single man! Have we no such man amongst us? I +am as sure as I am of my being, that one vigorous mind, without office, +without situation, without public functions of any kind, (at a time when +the want of such a thing is felt, as I am sure it is,) I say, one such +man, confiding in the aid of God, and full of just reliance in his own +fortitude, vigor, enterprise, and perseverance, would first draw to him +some few like himself, and then that multitudes, hardly thought to be in +existence, would appear and troop about him. + +If I saw this auspicious beginning, baffled and frustrated as I am, yet +on the very verge of a timely grave, abandoned abroad and desolate at +home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my helper, my +counsellor, and my guide, (you know in part what I have lost, and would +to God I could clear myself of all neglect and fault in that loss,) yet +thus, even thus, I would rake up the fire under all the ashes that +oppress it. I am no longer patient of the public eye; nor am I of force +to win my way and to justle and elbow in a crowd. But, even in solitude, +something may be done for society. The meditations of the closet have +infected senates with a subtle frenzy, and inflamed armies with the +brands of the Furies. The cure might come from the same source with the +distemper. I would add my part to those who would animate the people +(whose hearts are yet right) to new exertions in the old cause. + +Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should not a Maccabæus and +his brethren arise to assert the honor of the ancient law and to defend +the temple of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as can inspire +any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of +ancient ages? It is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that, +when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts +out of the ordinary course they can alone be reëstablished. Republican +spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature,--of the same +nature, but informed with another principle, and pointing to another +end. I would persuade a resistance both to the corruption and to the +reformation that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but much the +stronger, for combating both together. A victory over real corruptions +would enable us to baffle the spurious and pretended reformations. I +would not wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind of evil spirit +which evokes the powers of hell to rectify the disorders of the earth. +No! I would add my voice with better, and, I trust, more potent charms, +to draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from heaven, for the +correction of human vice, and the recalling of human error from the +devious ways into which it has been betrayed. I would wish to call the +impulses of individuals at once to the aid and to the control of +authority. By this, which I call the true republican spirit, paradoxical +as it may appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from the imbecility of +courts and the madness of the crowd. This republican spirit would not +suffer men in high place to bring ruin on their country and on +themselves. It would reform, not by destroying, but by saving, the +great, the rich, and the powerful. Such a republican spirit we perhaps +fondly conceive to have animated the distinguished heroes and patriots +of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and virtue. These they +would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not suffer +monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of dignity +or authority or freedom, to shake off those moral riders which reason +has appointed to govern every sort of rude power. These, in appearance +loading them by their weight, do by that pressure augment their +essential force. The momentum is increased by the extraneous weight. It +is true in moral as it is in mechanical science. It is true, not only in +the draught, but in the race. These riders of the great, in effect, hold +the reins which guide them in their course, and wear the spur that +stimulates them to the goals of honor and of safety. The great must +submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long +submit to the dominion of the great. _Dîs te minorem quod geris, +imperas_. This is the feudal tenure which they cannot alter. + +Indeed, my dear Sir, things are in a bad state. I do not deny a good +share of diligence, a very great share of ability, and much public +virtue to those who direct our affairs. But they are incumbered, not +aided, by their very instruments, and by all the apparatus of the state. +I think that our ministry (though there are things against them which +neither you nor I can dissemble, and which grieve me to the heart) is by +far the most honest and by far the wisest system of administration in +Europe. Their fall would be no trivial calamity. + +Not meaning to depreciate the minority in Parliament, whose talents are +also great, and to whom I do not deny virtues, their system seems to me +to be fundamentally wrong. But whether wrong or right, they have not +enough of coherence among themselves, nor of estimation with the public, +nor of numbers. They cannot make up an administration. Nothing is more +visible. Many other things are against them, which I do not charge as +faults, but reckon among national misfortunes. Extraordinary things must +be done, or one of the parties cannot stand as a ministry, nor the other +even as an opposition. They cannot change their situations, nor can any +useful coalition be made between them. I do not see the mode of it nor +the way to it. This aspect of things I do not contemplate with pleasure. + +I well know that everything of the daring kind which I speak of is +critical: but the times are critical. New things in a new world! I see +no hopes in the common tracks. If men are not to be found who can be got +to feel within them some impulse, _quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio +tantum_, and which makes them impatient of the present,--if none can be +got to feel that private persons may sometimes assume that sort of +magistracy which does not depend on the nomination of kings or the +election of the people, but has an inherent and self-existent power +which both would recognize, I see nothing in the world to hope. + +If I saw such a group beginning to cluster, such as they are, they +should have (all that I can give) my prayers and my advice. People talk +of war or cry for peace: have they to the bottom considered the +questions either of war or peace, upon the scale of the existing world? +No, I fear they have not. + +Why should not you yourself be one of those to enter your name in such a +list as I speak of? You are young; you have great talents; you have a +clear head; you have a natural, fluent, and unforced elocution; your +ideas are just, your sentiments benevolent, open, and enlarged;--but +this is too big for your modesty. Oh! this modesty, in time and place, +is a charming virtue, and the grace of all other virtues. But it is +sometimes the worst enemy they have. Let him whose print I gave you the +other day be engraved in your memory! Had it pleased Providence to have +spared him for the trying situations that seem to be coming on, +notwithstanding that he was sometimes a little dispirited by the +disposition which we thought shown to depress him and set him aside, yet +he was always buoyed up again; and on one or two occasions he discovered +what might be expected from the vigor and elevation of his mind, from +his unconquerable fortitude, and from the extent of his resources for +every purpose of speculation and of action. Remember him, my friend, who +in the highest degree honored and respected you; and remember that great +parts are a great trust. Remember, too, that mistaken or misapplied +virtues, if they are not as pernicious as vice, frustrate at least their +own natural tendencies, and disappoint the purposes of the Great Giver. + +Adieu. My dreams are finished. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Mr. Paine is a Norfolk man, from Thetford. + + + + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS + +ON + +SCARCITY. + +ORIGINALLY PRESENTED + +TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT, + +IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, + +1795. + + + + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS + +ON + +SCARCITY. + + +Of all things, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is +the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most +disposed to it,--that is, in the time of scarcity; because there is +nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment +so weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded +popular prejudices. + +The great use of government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint +which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that +which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of +irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of +faction and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured +by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate +prejudices which in themselves are more than sufficiently strong. In +that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the +first thing that government owes to us, the people, is _information_; +the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the other to +regulate our tempers. + +To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. +It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. +The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of +government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in +this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only so of the state and +statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich: they are +the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. +They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on +those who labor and are miscalled the poor. + +The laboring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in +their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast +multitude none can have much. That class of dependent pensioners called +the rich is so extremely small, that, if all their throats were cut, and +a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a +bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labor, and +who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. + +But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines +plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who +labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whether +they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust,--some with +more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But, on the whole, the duty +is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling +commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the +poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes +as when they burn mills and throw corn into the river to make bread +cheap. + +When I say that we of the people ought to be informed, inclusively I +say we ought not to be flattered: flattery is the reverse of +instruction. The _poor_ in that case would be rendered as improvident as +the rich, which would not be at all good for them. + +Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, +"the laboring _poor_." Let compassion be shown in action,--the more, the +better,--according to every man's ability; but let there be no +lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable +circumstances; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. +It arises from a total want of charity or a total want of thought. Want +of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, +labor, sobriety, frugality, and religion should be recommended to them; +all the rest is downright _fraud_. It is horrible to call them "the +_once happy_ laborer." + +Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the +laborious classes is increased or not, I cannot say. The seat of that +species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain +the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical +happiness is to want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much +and to enjoy much. + +If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere +towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our +estimate, then I assert, without the least hesitation, that the +condition of those who labor (in all descriptions of labor, and in all +gradations of labor, from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is, on +the whole, extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any standard +of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the +advantage of their augmented labor: yet whether that increase of labor +be on the whole a _good_ or an _evil_ is a consideration that would lead +us a great way, and is not for my present purpose. But as to the fact of +the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof, +whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of +contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour and +meat of the first quality is proof sufficient. + +I further assert, that, even under all the hardships of the last year, +the laboring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from +charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better +than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago,--or +even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four +years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were known +to do it before continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as +my own information and experience extend. + +It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal +price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that +price,--nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they +gave it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and fall with +the market of provisions. The rate of wages, in truth, has no _direct_ +relation to that price. Labor is a commodity like every other, and rises +or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things; +however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages +have been twice raised in my time; and they hear a full proportion, or +even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the +last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear a full proportion to the +result of their labor. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond +it, the stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon +them in a diminished demand, or, what indeed is the far lesser evil, an +aggravated price of all the provisions which are the result of their +manual toil. + +There is an implied contract, much stronger than any instrument or +article of agreement between the laborer in any occupation and his +employer,--that the labor, so far as that labor is concerned, shall be +sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital and a +compensation for his risk: in a word, that the labor shall produce an +advantage equal to the payment. Whatever is above that is a direct +_tax_; and if the amount of that tax be left to the will and pleasure of +another, it is an _arbitrary tax_. + +If I understand it rightly, the tax proposed on the farming interest of +this kingdom is to be levied at what is called the discretion of +justices of peace. + +The questions arising on this scheme of arbitrary taxation are these: +Whether it is better to leave all dealing, in which there is no force or +fraud, collusion or combination, entirely to the persons mutually +concerned in the matter contracted for,--or to put the contract into the +hands of those who can have none or a very remote interest in it, and +little or no knowledge of the subject. + +It might be imagined that there would be very little difficulty in +solving this question: for what man, of any degree of reflection, can +think that a want of interest in any subject, closely connected with a +want of skill in it, qualifies a person to intermeddle in any the least +affair,--much less in affairs that vitally concern the agriculture of +the kingdom, the first of all its concerns, and the foundation of all +its prosperity in every other matter by which that prosperity is +produced? + +The vulgar error on this subject arises from a total confusion in the +very idea of things widely different in themselves,--those of +convention, and those of judicature. When a contract is making, it is a +matter of discretion and of interest between the parties. In that +intercourse, and in what is to arise from it, the parties are the +masters. If they are not completely so, they are not free, and therefore +their contracts are void. + +But this freedom has no farther extent, when the contract is made: then +their discretionary powers expire, and a new order of things takes its +origin. Then, and not till then, and on a difference between the +parties, the office of the judge commences. He cannot dictate the +contract. It is his business to see that it be _enforced_,--provided +that it is not contrary to preëxisting laws, or obtained by force or +fraud. If he is in any way a maker or regulator of the contract, in so +much he is disqualified from being a judge. But this sort of confused +distribution of administrative and judicial characters (of which we have +already as much as is sufficient, and a little more) is not the only +perplexity of notions and passions which trouble us in the present hour. + +What is doing supposes, or pretends, that the farmer and the laborer +have opposite interests,--that the farmer oppresses the laborer,--and +that a gentleman, called a justice of peace, is the protector of the +latter, and a control and restraint on the former; and this is a point +I wish to examine in a manner a good deal different from that in which +gentlemen proceed, who confide more in their abilities than is fit, and +suppose them capable of more than any natural abilities, fed with no +other than the provender furnished by their own private speculations, +can accomplish. Legislative acts attempting to regulate this part of +economy do, at least as much as any other, require the exactest detail +of circumstances, guided by the surest general principles that are +necessary to direct experiment and inquiry, in order again from those +details to elicit principles, firm and luminous general principles, to +direct a practical legislative proceeding. + +First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any other, of +necessary implication that contracting parties should originally have +had different interests. By accident it may be so, undoubtedly, at the +outset: but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and +compromise is founded on circumstances that suppose it the interest of +the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The principle of compromise +adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different. + +But in the case of the farmer and the laborer, their interests are +always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free +contracts can be onerous to either party. It is the interest of the +farmer that his work should be done with effect and celerity; and that +cannot be, unless the laborer is well fed, and otherwise found with such +necessaries of animal life, according to its habitudes, as may keep the +body in full force, and the mind gay and cheerful. For of all the +instruments of his trade, the labor of man (what the ancient writers +have called the _instrumentum vocale_) is that on which he is most to +rely for the repayment of his capital. The other two, the _semivocale_ +in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and +the _instrumentum mutum_, such as carts, ploughs, spades, and so forth, +though not all inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferior in +utility or in expense, and, without a given portion of the first, are +nothing at all. For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most +valuable and the most important; and in this scale the whole of +agriculture is in a natural and just order: the beast is as an informing +principle to the plough and cart; the laborer is as reason to the beast; +and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer. +An attempt to break this chain of subordination in any part is equally +absurd; but the absurdity is the most mischievous, in practical +operation, where it is the most easy,--that is, where it is the most +subject to an erroneous judgment. + +It is plainly more the farmer's interest that his men should thrive than +that his horses should be well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or +than that his wagon and ploughs should be strong, in good repair, and +fit for service. + +On the other hand, if the farmer ceases to profit of the laborer, and +that his capital is not continually manured and fructified, it is +impossible that he should continue that abundant nutriment and clothing +and lodging proper for the protection of the instruments he employs. + +It is therefore the first and fundamental interest of the laborer, that +the farmer should have a full incoming profit on the product of his +labor. The proposition is self-evident; and nothing but the malignity, +perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind, and particularly the +envy they bear to each other's prosperity, could prevent their seeing +and acknowledging it, with thankfulness to the benign and wise Disposer +of all things, who obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing +their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own +individual success. + +But who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? +Certainly no authority on earth. It is a matter of convention, dictated +by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by their +reciprocal necessities.--But if the farmer is excessively +avaricious?--Why, so much the better: the more he desires to increase +his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition of those upon +whose labor his gains must principally depend. + +I shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may +be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and +the laborer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth, and at the +time of his health and vigor, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in +calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and +with the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future nourishers of the +community, but the present drains and blood-suckers of those who produce +them, what is to be done? When a man cannot live and maintain his family +by the natural hire of his labor, ought it not to be raised by +authority? + +On this head I must be allowed to submit what my opinions have ever +been, and somewhat at large. + +And, first, I premise that labor is, as I have already intimated, a +commodity, and, as such, an article of trade. If I am right in this +notion, then labor must be subject to all the laws and principles of +trade, and not to regulations foreign to them, and that may be totally +inconsistent with those principles and those laws. When any commodity is +carried to market, it is not the necessity of the vendor, but the +necessity of the purchaser, that raises the price. The extreme want of +the seller has rather (by the nature of things with which we shall in +vain contend) the direct contrary operation. If the goods at market are +beyond the demand, they fall in their value; if below it, they rise. The +impossibility of the subsistence of a man who carries his labor to a +market is totally beside the question, in this way of viewing it. The +only question is, What is it worth to the buyer? + +But if authority comes in and forces the buyer to a price, what is this +in the case (say) of a farmer who buys the labor of ten or twelve +laboring men, and three or four handicrafts,--what is it but to make an +arbitrary division of his property among them? + +The whole of his gains (I say it with the most certain conviction) never +do amount anything like in value to what he pays to his laborers and +artificers; so that a very small advance upon what _one_ man pays to +_many_ may absorb the whole of what he possesses, and amount to an +actual partition of all his substance among them. A perfect equality +will, indeed, be produced,--that is to say, equal want, equal +wretchedness, equal beggary, and, on the part of the partitioners, a +woful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all +compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise +what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level +of what was originally the lowest. + +If a commodity is raised by authority above what it will yield with a +profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. If a +second blundering interposition be used to correct the blunder of the +first and an attempt is made to force the purchase of the commodity, (of +labor, for instance,) the one of these two things must happen: either +that the forced buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the +labor in that proportion is raised. Then the wheel turns round, and the +evil complained of falls with aggravated weight on the complainant. The +price of corn, which is the result of the expense of all the operations +of husbandry taken together, and for some time continued, will rise on +the laborer, considered as a consumer. The very best will be, that he +remains where he was. But if the price of the corn should not compensate +the price of labor, what is far more to be feared, the most serious +evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to be apprehended. + +Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse +discrimination, a want of such classification and distribution as the +subject admits of. Increase the rate of wages to the laborer, say the +regulators,--as if labor was but one thing, and of one value. But this +very broad, generic term, _labor_, admits, at least, of two or three +specific descriptions: and these will suffice, at least, to let +gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution in +their coercive guidance of those whose existence depends upon the +observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly +they resort to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged part of +economy. + +The laborers in husbandry may be divided,--First, Into those who are +able to perform the full work of a man,--that is, what can be done by a +person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no husbandry work +(mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all +persons within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack +and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good +deal of difference between the value of one man's labor and that of +another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I am +quite sure, from my best observation, that any given five men will, in +their total, afford a proportion of labor equal to any other five within +the periods of life I have stated: that is, that among such five men +there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, +one bad, and the other three middling, and approximating to the first +and the last. So that, in so small a platoon as that of even five, you +will find the full complement of all that five men _can_ earn. Taking +five and five throughout the kingdom, they are equal: therefore an error +with regard to the equalization of their wages by those who employ five, +as farmers do at the very least, cannot be considerable. + +Secondly, Those who are able to work, but not the complete task of a +day-laborer. This class is infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough +fall into principal divisions. _Men_, from the decline, which after +fifty becomes every year more sensible, to the period of debility and +decrepitude, and the maladies that precede a final dissolution. _Women_, +whose employment on husbandry is but occasional, and who differ more in +effective labor one from another than men do, on account of gestation, +nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they +have in common with men in advancing, in stationary, and in declining +life. _Children_, who proceed on the reverse order, growing from less to +greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion of nutriment to +labor than is found in the second of those subdivisions: as is visible +to those who will give themselves the trouble of examining into the +interior economy of a poor-house. + +This inferior classification is introduced to show that laws prescribing +or magistrates exercising a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a +blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions +between earning and salary, on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: +whereas interest, habit, and the tacit convention that arise from a +thousand nameless circumstances produce a _tact_ that regulates without +difficulty what laws and magistrates cannot regulate at all. The first +class of labor wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. The +second and third are not capable of any equalization. + +But what if the rate of hire to the laborer comes far short of his +necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to +threaten actual famine? Is the poor laborer to be abandoned to the +flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the +sword of law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very +avarice of farmers themselves has concurred with the errors of +government to bring famine on the land? + +In that case, my opinion is this: Whenever it happens that a man can +claim nothing according to the rules of commerce and the principles of +justice, he passes out of that department, and comes within the +jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing at +all to do; his interference is a violation of the property which it is +his office to protect. Without all doubt, charity to the poor is a +direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next in order after the +payment of debts, full as strong, and by Nature made infinitely more +delightful to us Pufendorf, and other casuists, do not, I think, +denominate it quite properly, when they call it a duty of imperfect +obligation. But the manner, mode, time, choice of objects, and +proportion are left to private discretion; and perhaps for that very +reason it is performed with the greater satisfaction, because the +discharge of it has more the appearance of freedom,--recommending us +besides very specially to the Divine favor, as the exercise of a virtue +most suitable to a being sensible of its own infirmity. + +The cry of the people in cities and towns, though unfortunately (from a +fear of their multitude and combination) the most regarded, ought, in +_fact_, to be the _least_ attended to, upon this subject: for citizens +are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by which they are to be +fed, and they contribute little or nothing, except in an infinitely +circuitous manner, to their own maintenance. They are truly _fruges +consumere nati_. They are to be heard with great respect and attention +upon matters within their province,--that is, on trades and +manufactures; but on anything that relates to agriculture they are to be +listened to with the same _reverence_ which we pay to the dogmas of +other ignorant and presumptuous men. + +If any one were to tell them that they were to give in an account of all +the stock in their shops,--that attempts would be made to limit their +profits, or raise the price of the laboring manufacturers upon them, or +recommend to government, out of a capital from the public revenues, to +set up a shop of the same commodities, in order to rival them, and keep, +them to reasonable dealing,--they would very soon see the impudence, +injustice, and oppression of such a course. They would not be mistaken: +but they are of opinion that agriculture is to be subject to other laws, +and to be governed by other principles. + +A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be fallen into than that the +trades of agriculture and grazing can be conducted upon any other than +the common principles of commerce: namely, that the producer should be +permitted, and even expected, to look to all possible profit which +without fraud or violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to the +best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring forward his commodities +at his pleasure; to account to no one for his stock or for his gain. On +any other terms he is the slave of the consumer: and that he should be +so is of no benefit to the consumer. No slave was ever so beneficial to +the master as a freeman that deals with him on an equal footing by +convention, formed on the rules and principles of contending interests +and compromised advantages. The consumer, if he were suffered, would in +the end always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice. The landed +gentleman is never to forget that the farmer is his representative. + +It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the farmer. The farmer's +capital (except in a few persons and in a very few places) is far more +feeble than commonly is imagined. The trade is a very poor trade; it is +subject to great risks and losses. The capital, such as it is, is turned +but once in the year; in some branches it requires three years before +the money is paid: I believe never less than three in the turnip and +grass-land course, which is the prevalent course on the more or less +fertile sandy and gravelly loams,--and these compose the soil in the +south and southeast of England, the best adapted, and perhaps the only +ones that are adapted, to the turnip husbandry. + +It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer, counting the value of +his quick and dead stock, the interest of the money he turns, together +with his own wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever does make twelve or +fifteen per centum by the year on his capital. I speak of the +prosperous. In most of the parts of England which have fallen within my +observation I have rarely known a farmer, who to his own trade has not +added some other employment or traffic, that, after a course of the most +unremitting parsimony and labor, (such for the greater part is theirs,) +and persevering in his business for a long course of years, died worth +more than paid his debts, leaving his posterity to continue in nearly +the same equal conflict between industry and want, in which the last +predecessor, and a long line of predecessors before him, lived and died. + +Observe that I speak of the generality of farmers, who have not more +than from one hundred and fifty to three or four hundred acres. There +are few in this part of the country within the former or much beyond the +latter extent. Unquestionably in other places there are much larger. +But I am convinced, whatever part of England be the theatre of his +operations, a farmer who cultivates twelve hundred acres, which I +consider as a large farm, though I know there are larger, cannot proceed +with any degree of safety and effect with a smaller capital than ten +thousand pounds, and that he cannot, in the ordinary course of culture, +make more upon that great capital of ten thousand pounds than twelve +hundred a year. + +As to the weaker capitals, an easy judgment may be formed by what very +small errors they may be farther attenuated, enervated, rendered +unproductive, and perhaps totally destroyed. + +This constant precariousness and ultimate moderate limits of a farmer's +fortune, on the strongest capital, I press, not only on account of the +hazardous speculations of the times, but because the excellent and most +useful works of my friend, Mr. Arthur Young, tend to propagate that +error (such I am very certain it is) of the largeness of a farmer's +profits. It is not that his account of the produce does often greatly +exceed, but he by no means makes the proper allowance for accidents and +losses. I might enter into a convincing detail, if other more +troublesome and more necessary details were not before me. + +This proposed discretionary tax on labor militates with the +recommendations of the Board of Agriculture: they recommend a general +use of the drill culture. I agree with the Board, that, where the soil +is not excessively heavy, or incumbered with large loose stones, (which, +however, is the case with much otherwise good land,) that course is the +best and most productive,--provided that the most accurate eye, the most +vigilant superintendence, the most prompt activity, which has no such +day as to-morrow in its calendar, the most steady foresight and +predisposing order to have everybody and everything ready in its place, +and prepared to take advantage of the fortunate, fugitive moment, in +this coquetting climate of ours,--provided, I say, all these combine to +speed the plough, I admit its superiority over the old and general +methods. But under procrastinating, improvident, ordinary husbandmen, +who may neglect or let slip the few opportunities of sweetening and +purifying their ground with perpetually renovated toil and undissipated +attention, nothing, when tried to any extent, can be worse or more +dangerous: the farm may be ruined, instead of having the soil enriched +and sweetened by it. + +But the excellence of the method on a proper soil, and conducted by +husbandmen, of whom there are few, being readily granted, how, and on +what conditions, is this culture obtained? Why, by a very great increase +of labor: by an augmentation of the third part, at least, of the +hand-labor, to say nothing of the horses and machinery employed in +ordinary tillage. Now every man must be sensible how little becoming the +gravity of legislature it is to encourage a board which recommends to +us, and upon very weighty reasons unquestionably, an enlargement of the +capital we employ in the operations of the hand, and then to pass an act +which taxes that manual labor, already at a very high rate,--thus +compelling us to diminish the quantity of labor which in the vulgar +course we actually employ. + +What is true of the farmer is equally true of the middle-man,--whether +the middle-man acts as factor, jobber, salesman, or speculator, in the +markets of grain. These traders are to be left to their free course; +and the more they make, and the richer they are, and the more largely +they deal, the better both for the farmer and consumer, between whom +they form a natural and most useful link of connection,--though by the +machinations of the old evil counsellor, _Envy_, they are hated and +maligned by both parties. + +I hear that middle-men are accused of monopoly. Without question, the +monopoly of authority is, in every instance and in every degree, an +evil; but the monopoly of capital is the contrary. It is a great +benefit, and a benefit particularly to the poor. A tradesman who has but +a hundred pound capital, which (say) he can turn but once a year, cannot +live upon a _profit_ of ten per cent, because he cannot live upon ten +pounds a year; but a man of ten thousand pounds capital can live and +thrive upon five per cent profit in the year, because he has five +hundred pounds a year. The same proportion holds in turning it twice or +thrice. These principles are plain and simple; and it is not our +ignorance, so much as the levity, the envy, and the malignity of our +nature, that hinders us from perceiving and yielding to them: but we are +not to suffer our vices to usurp the place of our judgment. + +The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market +settles, and alone can settle, that price. Market is the meeting and +conference of the _consumer_ and _producer_, when they mutually discover +each other's wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection +what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, +the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is +settled. They who wish the destruction of that balance, and would fain +by arbitrary regulation decree that defective production should not be +compensated by increased price, directly lay their _axe_ to the root of +production itself. They may, even in one year of such false policy, do +mischiefs incalculable; because the trade of a farmer is, as I have +before explained, one of the most precarious in its advantages, the most +liable to losses, and the least profitable of any that is carried on. It +requires ten times more of labor, of vigilance, of attention, of skill, +and, let me add, of good fortune also, to carry on the business of a +farmer with success, than what belongs to any other trade. + +Seeing things in this light, I am far from presuming to censure the late +circular instruction of Council to lord-lieutenants, but I confess I do +not clearly discern its object. I am greatly afraid that the inquiry +will raise some alarm, as a measure leading to the French system of +putting corn into requisition. For that was preceded by an inquisition +somewhat similar in its principle, though, according to their mode, +their principles are full of that violence which _here_ is not much to +be feared. It goes on a principle directly opposite to mine: it presumes +that the market is no fair _test_ of plenty or scarcity. It raises a +suspicion, which may affect the tranquillity of the public mind, "that +the farmer keeps back, and takes unfair advantages by delay"; on the +part of the dealer, it gives rise obviously to a thousand nefarious +speculations. + +In case the return should on the whole prove favorable, is it meant to +ground a measure for encouraging exportation and checking the import of +corn? If it is not, what end can it answer? And I believe it is not. + +This opinion may be fortified by a report gone abroad, that intentions +are entertained of erecting public granaries, and that this inquiry is +to give government an advantage in its purchases. + +I hear that such a measure has been proposed, and is under deliberation: +that is, for government to set up a granary in every market-town, at the +expense of the state, in order to extinguish the dealer, and to subject +the farmer to the consumer, by securing corn to the latter at a certain +and steady price. + +If such a scheme is adopted, I should not like to answer for the safety +of the granary, of the agents, or of the town itself in which the +granary was erected: the first storm of popular frenzy would fall upon +that granary. + +So far in a political light. + +In an economical light, I must observe that the construction of such +granaries throughout the kingdom would be at an expense beyond all +calculation. The keeping them up would be at a great charge. The +management and attendance would require an army of agents, +store-keepers, clerks, and servants. The capital to be employed in the +purchase of grain would be enormous. The waste, decay, and corruption +would be a dreadful drawback on the whole dealing; and the +dissatisfaction of the people, at having decayed, tainted, or corrupted +corn sold to them, as must be the case, would be serious. + +This climate (whatever others may be) is not favorable to granaries, +where wheat is to be kept for any time. The best, and indeed the only +good granary, is the rick-yard of the farmer, where the corn is +preserved in its own straw, sweet, clean, wholesome, free from vermin +and from insects, and comparatively at a trifle of expense. This, and +the barn, enjoying many of the same advantages, have been the sole +granaries of England from the foundation of its agriculture to this day. +All this is done at the expense of the undertaker, and at his sole risk. +He contributes to government, he receives nothing from it but +protection, and to this he has a _claim_. + +The moment that government appears at market, all the principles of +market will be subverted. I don't know whether the farmer will suffer by +it, as long as there is a tolerable market of competition; but I am +sure, that, in the first place, the trading government will speedily +become a bankrupt, and the consumer in the end will suffer. If +government makes all its purchases at once, it will instantly raise the +market upon itself. If it makes them by degrees, it must follow the +course of the market. If it follows the course of the market, it will +produce no effect, and the consumer may as well buy as he wants; +therefore all the expense is incurred gratis. + +But if the object of this scheme should be, what I suspect it is, to +destroy the dealer, commonly called the middle-man, and by incurring a +voluntary loss to carry the baker to deal with government, I am to tell +them that they must set up another trade, that of a miller or a +meal-man, attended with a new train of expenses and risks. If in both +these trades they should succeed, so as to exclude those who trade on +natural and private capitals, then they will have a monopoly in their +hands, which, under the appearance of a monopoly of capital, will, in +reality, be a monopoly of authority, and will ruin whatever it touches. +The agriculture of the kingdom cannot stand before it. + +A little place like Geneva, of not more than from twenty-five to thirty +thousand inhabitants,--which has no territory, or next to none,--which +depends for its existence on the good-will of three neighboring powers, +and is of course continually in the state of something like a _siege_, +or in the speculation of it,--might find some resource in state +granaries, and some revenue from the monopoly of what was sold to the +keepers of public-houses. This is a policy for a state too small for +agriculture. It is not (for instance) fit for so great a country as the +Pope possesses,--where, however, it is adopted and pursued in a greater +extent, and with more strictness. Certain of the Pope's territories, +from whence the city of Rome is supplied, being obliged to furnish Rome +and the granaries of his Holiness with corn at a certain price, that +part of the Papal territories is utterly ruined. That ruin may be traced +with certainty to this sole cause; and it appears indubitably by a +comparison of their state and condition with that of the other part of +the ecclesiastical dominions, not subjected to the same regulations, +which are in circumstances highly flourishing. + +The reformation of this evil system is in a manner impracticable. For, +first, it does keep bread and all other provisions equally subject to +the chamber of supply, at a pretty reasonable and regular price, in the +city of Rome. This preserves quiet among the numerous poor, idle, and +naturally mutinous people of a very great capital. But the quiet of the +town is purchased by the ruin of the country and the ultimate +wretchedness of both. The next cause which renders this evil incurable +is the jobs which have grown out of it, and which, in spite of all +precautions, would grow out of such things even under governments far +more potent than the feeble authority of the Pope. + +This example of Rome, which has been derived from the most ancient +times, and the most flourishing period of the Roman Empire, (but not of +the Roman agriculture,) may serve as a great caution to all governments +not to attempt to feed the people out of the hands of the magistrates. +If once they are habituated to it, though but for one half-year, they +will never be satisfied to have it otherwise. And having looked to +government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite +the hand that fed them. To avoid that _evil_, government will redouble +the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable. + +I beseech the government (which I take in the largest sense of the word, +comprehending the two Houses of Parliament) seriously to consider that +years of scarcity or plenty do not come alternately or at short +intervals, but in pretty long cycles and irregularly, and consequently +that we cannot assure ourselves, if we take a wrong measure, from the +temporary necessities of one season, but that the next, and probably +more, will drive us to the continuance of it; so that, in my opinion, +there is no way of preventing this evil, which goes to the destruction +of all our agriculture, and of that part of our internal commerce which +touches our agriculture the most nearly, as well as the safety and very +being of government, but manfully to resist the very first idea, +speculative or practical, that it is within the competence of +government, taken as government, or even of the rich, as rich, to supply +to the poor those necessaries which it has pleased the Divine +Providence for a while to withhold from them. We, the people, ought to +be made sensible that it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which +are the laws of Nature, and consequently the laws of God, that we are to +place our hope of softening the Divine displeasure to remove any +calamity under which we suffer or which hangs over us. + +So far as to the principles of general policy. + +As to the state of things which is urged as a reason to deviate from +them, these are the circumstances of the harvest of 1794 and 1795. With +regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to the noblest grain, wheat, +it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively,--and in +quality, for the seven-and-twenty years during which I have been a +farmer, I never remember wheat to have been so good. The world were, +however, deceived in their speculations upon it,--the farmer as well as +the dealer. Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond anything I can +remember: for at one time of the year I sold my wheat at 14_l._ a load, +(I sold off all I had, as I thought this was a reasonable price,) when +at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell, I might have +got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain. I sold all that I had, as +I said, at a comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price, +compared with what I thought the general produce of the harvest; but +when I came to consider what my own _total_ was, I found that the +quantity had not answered my expectation. It must be remembered that +this year of produce, (the year 1794,) short, but excellent, followed a +year which was not extraordinary in production, nor of a superior +quality, and left but little in store. At first, this was not felt, +because the harvest came in unusually early,--earlier than common by a +full month. + +The winter, at the end of 1794 and beginning of 1795, was more than +usually unfavorable both to corn and grass, owing to the sudden +relaxation of very rigorous frosts, followed by rains, which were again +rapidly succeeded by frosts of still greater rigor than the first. + +Much wheat was utterly destroyed. The clover-grass suffered in many +places. What I never observed before, the rye-grass, or coarse bent, +suffered more than the clover. Even the meadow-grass in some places was +killed to the very roots. In the spring appearances were better than we +expected. All the early sown grain recovered itself, and came up with +great vigor; but that which was late sown was feeble, and did not +promise to resist any blights in the spring, which, however, with all +its unpleasant vicissitudes, passed off very well; and nothing looked +better than the wheat at the time of blooming;--but at that most +critical time of all, a cold, dry east wind, attended with very sharp +frosts, longer and stronger than I recollect at that time of year, +destroyed the flowers, and withered up, in an astonishing manner, the +whole side of the ear next to the wind. At that time I brought to town +some of the ears, for the purpose of showing to my friends the operation +of those unnatural frosts, and according to their extent I predicted a +great scarcity. But such is the pleasure of agreeable prospects, that my +opinion was little regarded. + +On threshing, I found things as I expected,--the ears not filled, some +of the capsules quite empty, and several others containing only +withered, hungry grain, inferior to the appearance of rye. My best ears +and grain were not fine; never had I grain of so low a quality: yet I +sold one load for 21_l._ At the same time I bought my seed wheat (it was +excellent) at 23_l._ Since then the price has risen, and I have sold +about two load of the same sort at 23_l._ Such was the state of the +market when I left home last Monday. Little remains in my barn. I hope +some in the rick may be better, since it was earlier sown, as well as I +can recollect. Some of my neighbors have better, some quite as bad, or +even worse. I suspect it will be found, that, wherever the blighting +wind and those frosts at blooming-time have prevailed, the produce of +the wheat crop will turn out very indifferent. Those parts which have +escaped will, I can hardly doubt, have a reasonable produce. + +As to the other grains, it is to be observed, as the wheat ripened very +late, (on account, I conceive, of the blights,) the barley got the start +of it, and was ripe first. The crop was with me, and wherever my inquiry +could reach, excellent; in some places far superior to mine. + +The clover, which came up with the barley, was the finest I remember to +have seen. + +The turnips of this year are generally good. + +The clover sown last year, where not totally destroyed, gave two good +crops, or one crop and a plentiful feed; and, bating the loss of the +rye-grass, I do not remember a better produce. + +The meadow-grass yielded but a middling crop, and neither of the sown or +natural grass was there in any farmer's possession any remainder from +the year worth taking into account. In most places there was none at +all. + +Oats with me were not in a quantity more considerable than in commonly +good seasons; but I have never known them heavier than they were in +other places. The oat was not only an heavy, but an uncommonly abundant +crop. + +My ground under pease did not exceed an acre or thereabouts, but the +crop was great indeed. I believe it is throughout the country exuberant. +It is, however, to be remarked, as generally of all the grains, so +particularly of the pease, that there was not the smallest quantity in +reserve. + +The demand of the year must depend solely on its own produce; and the +price of the spring corn is not to be expected to fall very soon, or at +any time very low. + +Uxbridge is a great corn market. As I came through that town, I found +that at the last market-day barley was at forty shillings a quarter. +Oats there were literally none; and the inn-keeper was obliged to send +for them to London. I forgot to ask about pease. Potatoes were 5_s_. the +bushel. + +In the debate on this subject in the House, I am told that a leading +member of great ability, _little conversant in these matters_, observed, +that the general uniform dearness of butcher's meat, butter, and cheese +could not be owing to a defective produce of wheat; and on this ground +insinuated a suspicion of some unfair practice on the subject, that +called for inquiry. + +Unquestionably, the mere deficiency of wheat could not cause the +dearness of the other articles, which extends not only to the provisions +he mentioned, but to every other without exception. + +The cause is, indeed, so very plain and obvious that the wonder is the +other way. When a properly directed inquiry is made, the gentlemen who +are amazed at the price of these commodities will find, that, when hay +is at six pound a load, as they must know it is, herbage, and for more +than one year, must be scanty; and they will conclude, that, if grass be +scarce, beef, veal, mutton, butter, milk, and cheese _must_ be dear. + +But to take up the matter somewhat more in detail.--If the wheat harvest +in 1794, excellent in quality, was defective in quantity, the barley +harvest was in quality ordinary enough, and in quantity deficient. This +was soon felt in the price of malt. + +Another article of produce (beans) was not at all plentiful. The crop of +pease was wholly destroyed, so that several farmers pretty early gave up +all hopes on that head, and cut the green haulm as fodder for the +cattle, then perishing for want of food in that dry and burning summer. +I myself came off better than most: I had about the fourth of a crop of +pease. + +It will be recollected, that, in a manner, all the bacon and pork +consumed in this country (the far largest consumption of meat out of +towns) is, when growing, fed on grass, and on whey or skimmed milk,--and +when fatting, partly on the latter. This is the case in the dairy +countries, all of them great breeders and feeders of swine; but for the +much greater part, and in all the corn countries, they are fattened on +beans, barley-meal, and pease. When the food of the animal is scarce, +his flesh must be dear. This, one would suppose, would require no great +penetration to discover. + +This failure of so very large a supply of flesh in one species naturally +throws the whole demand of the consumer on the diminished supply of all +kinds of flesh, and, indeed, on all the matters of human sustenance. +Nor, in my opinion, are we to expect a greater cheapness in that article +for this year, even though corn should grow cheaper, as it is to be +hoped it will. The store swine, from the failure of subsistence last +year, are now at an extravagant price. Pigs, at our fairs, have sold +lately for fifty shillings, which two years ago would not have brought +more than twenty. + +As to sheep, none, I thought, were strangers to the general failure of +the article of turnips last year: the early having been burned, as they +came up, by the great drought and heat; the late, and those of the early +which had escaped, were destroyed by the chilling frosts of the winter +and the wet and severe weather of the spring. In many places a full +fourth of the sheep or the lambs were lost; what remained of the lambs +were poor and ill fed, the ewes having had no milk. The calves came +late, and they were generally an article the want of which was as much +to be dreaded as any other. So that article of food, formerly so +abundant in the early part of the summer, particularly in London, and +which in a great part supplied the place of mutton for near two months, +did little less than totally fail. + +All the productions of the earth link in with each other. All the +sources of plenty, in all and every article, were dried or frozen up. +The scarcity was not, as gentlemen seem to suppose, in wheat only. + +Another cause, and that not of inconsiderable operation, tended to +produce a scarcity in flesh provision. It is one that on many accounts +cannot be too much regretted, and the rather, as it was the sole _cause_ +of a scarcity in that article which arose from the proceedings of men +themselves: I mean the stop put to the distillery. + +The hogs (and that would be sufficient) which were fed with the waste +wash of that produce did not demand the fourth part of the corn used by +farmers in fattening them. The spirit was nearly so much clear gain to +the nation. It is an odd way of making flesh cheap, to stop or check the +distillery. + +The distillery in itself produces an immense article of trade almost all +over the world,--to Africa, to North America, and to various parts of +Europe. It is of great use, next to food itself, to our fisheries and to +our whole navigation. A great part of the distillery was carried on by +damaged corn, unfit for bread, and by barley and malt of the lowest +quality. These things could not be more unexceptionably employed. The +domestic consumption of spirits produced, without complaints, a very +great revenue, applicable, if we pleased, in bounties, to the bringing +corn from other places, far beyond the value of that consumed in making +it, or to the encouragement of its increased production at home. + +As to what is said, in a physical and moral view, against the home +consumption of spirits, experience has long since taught me very little +to respect the declamations on that subject. Whether the thunder of the +laws or the thunder of eloquence "is hurled on _gin_" always I am +thunder-proof. The alembic, in my mind, has furnished to the world a far +greater benefit and blessing than if the _opus maximum_ had been really +found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we could turn everything into gold. + +Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abuse in the excess of spirits; and +at one time I am ready to believe the abuse was great. When spirits are +cheap, the business of drunkenness is achieved with little time or +labor; but that evil I consider to be wholly done away. Observation for +the last forty years, and very particularly for the last thirty, has +furnished me with ten instances of drunkenness from other causes for one +from this. Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove +distempers, much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away +in their beginnings. It is not nutritive in _any great_ degree. But if +not food, it greatly alleviates the want of it. It invigorates the +stomach for the digestion of poor, meagre diet, not easily alliable to +the human constitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to +many occasions, (as among seamen and fishermen, for instance,) will by +no means do the business. Let me add, what wits inspired with champagne +and claret will turn into ridicule,--it is a medicine for the mind. +Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men +have at all times and in all countries called in some physical aid to +their moral consolations,--wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. + +I consider, therefore, the stopping of the distillery, economically, +financially, commercially, medicinally, and in some degree morally too, +as a measure rather well meant than well considered. It is too precious +a sacrifice to prejudice. + +Gentlemen well know whether there be a scarcity of partridges, and +whether that be an effect of hoarding and combination. All the tame race +of birds live and die as the wild do. + +As to the lesser articles, they are like the greater. They have followed +the fortune of the season. Why are fowls dear? Was not this the farmer's +or jobber's fault? I sold from my yard to a jobber six young and lean +fowls for four-and-twenty shillings,--fowls for which two years ago the +same man would not have given a shilling apiece. He sold them afterwards +at Uxbridge, and they were taken to London to receive the last hand. + +As to the operation of the war in causing the scarcity of provisions, I +understand that Mr. Pitt has given a particular answer to it; but I do +not think it worth powder and shot. + +I do not wonder the papers are so full of this sort of matter, but I am +a little surprised it should be mentioned in Parliament. Like all great +state questions, peace and war may be discussed, and different opinions +fairly formed, on political grounds; but on a question of the present +price of provisions, when peace with the Regicides is always uppermost, +I can only say that great is the love of it. + +After all, have we not reason to be thankful to the Giver of all Good? +In our history, and when "the laborer of England is said to have been +once happy," we find constantly, after certain intervals, a period of +real famine, by which a melancholy havoc was made among the human race. +The price of provisions fluctuated dreadfully, demonstrating a +deficiency very different from the worst failures of the present moment. +Never, since I have known England, have I known more than a comparative +scarcity. The price of wheat, taking a number of years together, has had +no very considerable fluctuation; nor has it risen exceedingly until +within this twelvemonth. Even now, I do not know of one man, woman, or +child that has perished from famine: fewer, if any, I believe, than in +years of plenty, when such a thing may happen by accident. This is owing +to a care and superintendence of the poor, far greater than any I +remember. + +The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together, +against those wicked writers of the newspapers who would inflame the +poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and protectors. Not only +very few (I have observed that I know of none, though I live in a place +as poor as most) have actually died of want, but we have seen no traces +of those dreadful exterminating epidemics which, in consequence of +scanty and unwholesome food, in former times not unfrequently wasted +whole nations. Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we +shall do tolerably well. + +It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often +engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession,--What the state +ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it +ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual +discretion. Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that +will not admit of exceptions,--many permanent, some occasional. But the +clearest line of distinction which I could draw, whilst I had my chalk +to draw any line, was this: that the state ought to confine itself to +what regards the state or the creatures of the state: namely, the +exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its +military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their +existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is _truly and +properly_ public,--to the public peace, to the public safety, to the +public order, to the public prosperity. In its preventive police it +ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few, +unfrequent, and strong, than many, and frequent, and, of course, as +they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble. +Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to +wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their +duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains +will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they descend from the +state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a +private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. They _cannot_ do +the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly +fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of +things,--what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To +these great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law. + +Our legislature has fallen into this fault, as well as other +governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state +which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose +ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this +error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,--[Greek: +ESSETAI HMAP] Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the +flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the +hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and +Constitutionalists of France: a species of traitors, of whose fury and +atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the frenzy and depravation +of mankind had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never +think or speak without a mixed sensation of disgust, of horror, and of +detestation, not easy to be expressed. These nefarious monsters +destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was +in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed +and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world. But +though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished +them with means for its destruction. My dear departed friend, whose loss +is even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the +leading vice of the French monarchy (which he had well studied) was in +good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of governing too +much. The hand of authority was seen in everything and in every place. +All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic +affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in +this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious +power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible +imbecility. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I +thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior +power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much +use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But +as everything is good or bad as it is related or combined, government +being relaxed above as it was relaxed below, and the brains of the +people growing more and more addle with every sort of visionary +speculation, the shiftings of the scene in the provincial theatres +became only preparatives to a revolution in the kingdom, and the popular +actings there only the rehearsals of the terrible drama of the Republic. + +Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused +powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any +other direct cause than its own weakness. My opinion is against an +overdoing of any sort of administration, and more especially against +this most momentous of all meddling on the part of authority,--the +meddling with the subsistence of the people. + + + + +A + +LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD + +ON + +THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, + +BY + +THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE, + +EARLY IN THE PRESENT SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. + +1796. + + + + +LETTER. + + +My lord,--I could hardly flatter myself with the hope that so very early +in the season I should have to acknowledge obligations to the Duke of +Bedford and to the Earl of Lauderdale. These noble persons have lost no +time in conferring upon me that sort of honor which it is alone within +their competence, and which it is certainly most congenial to their +nature and their manners, to bestow. + +To be ill spoken of, in whatever language they speak, by the zealots of +the new sect in philosophy and politics, of which these noble persons +think so charitably, and of which others think so justly, to me is no +matter of uneasiness or surprise. To have incurred the displeasure of +the Duke of Orleans or the Duke of Bedford, to fall under the censure of +Citizen Brissot or of his friend the Earl of Lauderdale, I ought to +consider as proofs, not the least satisfactory, that I have produced +some part of the effect I proposed by my endeavors. I have labored hard +to earn what the noble Lords are generous enough to pay. Personal +offence I have given them none. The part they take against me is from +zeal to the cause. It is well,--it is perfectly well. I have to do +homage to their justice. I have to thank the Bedfords and the +Lauderdales for having so faithfully and so fully acquitted towards me +whatever arrear of debt was left undischarged by the Priestleys and the +Paines. + +Some, perhaps, may think them executors in their own wrong: I at least +have nothing to complain of. They have gone beyond the demands of +justice. They have been (a little, perhaps, beyond their intention) +favorable to me. They have been the means of bringing out by their +invectives the handsome things which Lord Grenville has had the goodness +and condescension to say in my behalf. Retired as I am from the world, +and from all its affairs and all its pleasures, I confess it does kindle +in my nearly extinguished feelings a very vivid satisfaction to be so +attacked and so commended. It is soothing to my wounded mind to be +commended by an able, vigorous, and well-informed statesman, and at the +very moment when he stands forth, with a manliness and resolution worthy +of himself and of his cause, for the preservation of the person and +government of our sovereign, and therein for the security of the laws, +the liberties, the morals, and the lives of his people. To be in any +fair way connected with such things is indeed a distinction. No +philosophy can make me above it: no melancholy can depress me so low as +to make me wholly insensible to such an honor. + +Why will they not let me remain in obscurity and inaction? Are they +apprehensive, that, if an atom of me remains, the sect has something to +fear? Must I be annihilated, lest, like old John Zisca's, my skin might +be made into a drum, to animate Europe to eternal battle against a +tyranny that threatens to overwhelm all Europe and all the human race? + +My Lord, it is a subject of awful meditation. Before this of France, +the annals of all time have not furnished an instance of a _complete_ +revolution. That revolution seems to have extended even to the +constitution of the mind of man. It has this of wonderful in it, that it +resembles what Lord Verulam says of the operations of Nature: It was +perfect, not only in its elements and principles, but in all its members +and its organs, from the very beginning. The moral scheme of France +furnishes the only pattern ever known which they who admire will +_instantly_ resemble. It is, indeed, an inexhaustible repertory of one +kind of examples. In my wretched condition, though hardly to be classed +with the living, I am not safe from them. They have tigers to fall upon +animated strength; they have hyenas to prey upon carcasses. The national +menagerie is collected by the first physiologists of the time; and it is +defective in no description of savage nature. They pursue even such as +me into the obscurest retreats, and haul them before their revolutionary +tribunals. Neither sex, nor age, nor the sanctuary of the tomb, is +sacred to them. They have so determined a hatred to all privileged +orders, that they deny even to the departed the sad immunities of the +grave. They are not wholly without an object. Their turpitude purveys to +their malice; and they unplumb the dead for bullets to assassinate the +living. If all revolutionists were not proof against all caution, I +should recommend it to their consideration, that no persons were ever +known in history, either sacred or profane, to vex the sepulchre, and by +their sorceries to call up the prophetic dead, with any other event than +the prediction of their own disastrous fate.--"Leave me, oh, leave me to +repose!" + +In one thing I can excuse the Duke of Bedford for his attack upon me and +my mortuary pension: He cannot readily comprehend the transaction he +condemns. What I have obtained was the fruit of no bargain, the +production of no intrigue, the result of no compromise, the effect of no +solicitation. The first suggestion of it never came from me, mediately +or immediately, to his Majesty or any of his ministers. It was long +known that the instant my engagements would permit it, and before the +heaviest of all calamities had forever condemned me to obscurity and +sorrow, I had resolved on a total retreat. I had executed that design. I +was entirely out of the way of serving or of hurting any statesman or +any party, when the ministers so generously and so nobly carried into +effect the spontaneous bounty of the crown. Both descriptions have acted +as became them. When I could no longer serve them, the ministers have +considered my situation. When I could no longer hurt them, the +revolutionists have trampled on my infirmity. My gratitude, I trust, is +equal to the manner in which the benefit was conferred. It came to me, +indeed, at a time of life, and in a state of mind and body, in which no +circumstance of fortune could afford me any real pleasure. But this was +no fault in the royal donor, or in his ministers, who were pleased, in +acknowledging the merits of an invalid servant of the public, to assuage +the sorrows of a desolate old man. + +It would ill become me to boast of anything. It would as ill become me, +thus called upon, to depreciate the value of a long life spent with +unexampled toil in the service of my country. Since the total body of my +services, on account of the industry which was shown in them, and the +fairness of my intentions, have obtained the acceptance of my sovereign, +it would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of +Bedford and the Corresponding Society, or, as far as in me lies, to +permit a dispute on the rate at which the authority appointed by _our_ +Constitution to estimate such things has been pleased to set them. + +Loose libels ought to be passed by in silence and contempt. By me they +have been so always. I knew, that, as long as I remained in public, I +should live down the calumnies of malice and the judgments of ignorance. +If I happened to be now and then in the wrong, (as who is not?) like all +other men, I must bear the consequence of my faults and my mistakes. The +libels of the present day are just of the same stuff as the libels of +the past. But they derive an importance from the rank of the persons +they come from, and the gravity of the place where they were uttered. In +some way or other I ought to take some notice of them. To assert myself +thus traduced is not vanity or arrogance. It is a demand of justice; it +is a demonstration of gratitude. If I am unworthy, the ministers are +worse than prodigal. On that hypothesis, I perfectly agree with the Duke +of Bedford. + +For whatever I have been (I am now no more) I put myself on my country. +I ought to be allowed a reasonable freedom, because I stand upon my +deliverance; and no culprit ought to plead in irons. Even in the utmost +latitude of defensive liberty, I wish to preserve all possible decorum. +Whatever it may be in the eyes of these noble persons themselves, to me +their situation calls for the most profound respect. If I should happen +to trespass a little, which I trust I shall not, let it always be +supposed that a confusion of characters may produce mistakes,--that, in +the masquerades of the grand carnival of our age, whimsical adventures +happen, odd things are said and pass off. If I should fail a single +point in the high respect I owe to those illustrious persons, I cannot +be supposed to mean the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale of +the House of Peers, but the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale +of Palace Yard,--the Dukes and Earls of Brentford. There they are on the +pavement; there they seem to come nearer to my humble level, and, +virtually at least, to have waived their high privilege. + +Making this protestation, I refuse all revolutionary tribunals, where +men have been put to death for no other reason than that they had +obtained favors from the crown. I claim, not the letter, but the spirit +of the old English law,--that is, to be tried by my peers. I decline his +Grace's jurisdiction as a judge. I challenge the Duke of Bedford as a +juror to pass upon the value of my services. Whatever his natural parts +may be, I cannot recognize in his few and idle years the competence to +judge of my long and laborious life. If I can help it, he shall not be +on the inquest of my _quantum meruit_. Poor rich man! he can hardly know +anything of public industry in its exertions, or can estimate its +compensations when its work is done. I have no doubt of his Grace's +readiness in all the calculations of vulgar arithmetic; but I shrewdly +suspect that he is little studied in the theory of moral proportions, +and has never learned the rule of three in the arithmetic of policy and +state. + +His Grace thinks I have obtained too much. I answer, that my exertions, +whatever they have been, were such as no hopes of pecuniary reward could +possibly excite; and no pecuniary compensation can possibly reward them. +Between money and such services, if done by abler men than I am, there +is no common principle of comparison: they are quantities +incommensurable. Money is made for the comfort and convenience of animal +life. It cannot be a reward for what mere animal life must, indeed, +sustain, but never can inspire. With submission to his Grace, I have not +had more than sufficient. As to any noble use, I trust I know how to +employ as well as he a much greater fortune than he possesses. In a more +confined application, I certainly stand in need of every kind of relief +and easement much more than he does. When I say I have not received more +than I deserve, is this the language I hold to Majesty? No! Far, very +far, from it! Before that presence I claim no merit at all. Everything +towards me is favor and bounty. One style to a gracious benefactor; +another to a proud and insulting foe. + +His Grace is pleased to aggravate my guilt by charging my acceptance of +his Majesty's grant as a departure from my ideas and the spirit of my +conduct with regard to economy. If it be, my ideas of economy wore false +and ill-founded. But they are the Duke of Bedford's ideas of economy I +have contradicted, and not my own. If he means to allude to certain +bills brought in by me on a message from the throne in 1782, I tell him +that there is nothing in my conduct that can contradict either the +letter or the spirit of those acts. Does he mean the Pay-Office Act? I +take it for granted he does not. The act to which he alludes is, I +suppose, the Establishment Act. I greatly doubt whether his Grace has +ever read the one or the other. The first of these systems cost me, with +every assistance which my then situation gave me, pains incredible. I +found an opinion common through all the offices, and general in the +public at large, that it would prove impossible to reform and methodize +the office of pay-master-general. I undertook it, however; and I +succeeded in my undertaking. Whether the military service, or whether +the general economy of our finances have profited by that act, I leave +to those who are acquainted with the army and with the treasury to +judge. + +An opinion full as general prevailed also, at the same time, that +nothing could be done for the regulation of the civil list +establishment. The very attempt to introduce method into it, and any +limitations to its services, was held absurd. I had not seen the man who +so much as suggested one economical principle or an economical expedient +upon that subject. Nothing but coarse amputation or coarser taxation +were then talked of, both of them without design, combination, or the +least shadow of principle. Blind and headlong zeal or factious fury were +the whole contribution brought by the most noisy, on that occasion, +towards the satisfaction of the public or the relief of the crown. + +Let me tell my youthful censor, that the necessities of that time +required something very different from what others then suggested or +what his Grace now conceives. Let me inform him, that it was one of the +most critical periods in our annals. + +Astronomers have supposed, that, if a certain comet, whose path +intersected the ecliptic, had met the earth in some (I forgot what) +sign, it would have whirled us along with it, in its eccentric course, +into God knows what regions of heat and cold. Had the portentous comet +of the Rights of Man, (which "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and +war," and "with fear of change perplexes monarchs,") had that comet +crossed upon us in that internal state of England, nothing human could +have prevented our being irresistibly hurried out of the highway of +heaven into all the vices, crimes, horrors, and miseries of the French +Revolution. + +Happily, France was not then Jacobinized. Her hostility was at a good +distance. We had a limb cut off, but we preserved the body: we lost our +colonies, but we kept our Constitution. There was, indeed, much +intestine heat; there was a dreadful fermentation. Wild and savage +insurrection quitted the woods, and prowled about our streets in the +name of Reform. Such was the distemper of the public mind, that there +was no madman, in his maddest ideas and maddest projects, who might not +count upon numbers to support his principles and execute his designs. + +Many of the changes, by a great misnomer called Parliamentary Reforms, +went, not in the intention of all the professors and supporters of them, +undoubtedly, but went in their certain, and, in my opinion, not very +remote effect, home to the utter destruction of the Constitution of this +kingdom. Had they taken place, not France, but England, would have had +the honor of leading up the death-dance of democratic revolution. Other +projects, exactly coincident in time with those, struck at the very +existence of the kingdom under any Constitution. There are who remember +the blind fury of some and the lamentable helplessness of others; here, +a torpid confusion, from a panic fear of the danger,--there, the same +inaction, from a stupid insensibility to it; here, well-wishers to the +mischief,--there, indifferent lookers-on. At the same time, a sort of +National Convention, dubious in its nature and perilous in its example, +nosed Parliament in the very seat of its authority,--sat with a sort of +superintendence over it,--and little less than dictated to it, not only +laws, but the very form and essence of legislature itself. In Ireland +things ran in a still more eccentric course. Government was unnerved, +confounded, and in a manner suspended. Its equipoise was totally gone. I +do not mean to speak disrespectfully of Lord North. He was a man of +admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding +fitted for every sort of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a +delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. But it +would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honor +the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the +vigilance and spirit of command that the time required. Indeed, a +darkness next to the fog of this awful day lowered over the whole +region. For a little time the helm appeared abandoned. + + Ipse diem noctemque negat discernere coelo, + Nec meminisse viæ mediâ Palinurus in undâ. + +At that time I was connected with men of high place in the community. +They loved liberty as much as the Duke of Bedford can do; and they +understood it at least as well. Perhaps their politics, as usual, took a +tincture from their character, and they cultivated what they loved. The +liberty they pursued was a liberty inseparable from order, from virtue, +from morals, and from religion,--and was neither hypocritically nor +fanatically followed. They did not wish that liberty, in itself one of +the first of blessings, should in its perversion become the greatest +curse which could fall upon mankind. To preserve the Constitution +entire, and practically equal to all the great ends of its formation, +not in one single part, but in all its parts, was to them the first +object. Popularity and power they regarded alike. These were with them +only different means of obtaining that object, and had no preference +over each other in their minds, but as one or the other might afford a +surer or a less certain prospect of arriving at that end. It is some +consolation to me, in the cheerless gloom which darkens the evening of +my life, that with them I commenced my political career, and never for a +moment, in reality nor in appearance, for any length of time, was +separated from their good wishes and good opinion. + +By what accident it matters not, nor upon what desert, but just then, +and in the midst of that hunt of obloquy which ever has pursued me with +a full cry through life, I had obtained a very considerable degree of +public confidence. I know well enough how equivocal a test this kind of +popular opinion forms of the merit that obtained it. I am no stranger to +the insecurity of its tenure. I do not boast of it. It is mentioned to +show, not how highly I prize the thing, but my right to value the use I +made of it. I endeavored to turn that short-lived advantage to myself +into a permanent benefit to my country. Far am I from detracting from +the merit of some gentlemen, out of office or in it, on that occasion. +No! It is not my way to refuse a full and heaped measure of justice to +the aids that I receive. I have through life been willing to give +everything to others,--and to reserve nothing for myself, but the inward +conscience that I had omitted no pains to discover, to animate, to +discipline, to direct the abilities of the country for its service, and +to place them in the best light to improve their age, or to adorn it. +This conscience I have. I have never suppressed any man, never checked +him for a moment in his course, by any jealousy, or by any policy. I was +always ready, to the height of my means, (and they wore always +infinitely below my desires,) to forward those abilities which +overpowered my own. He is an ill-furnished undertaker who has no +machinery but his own hands to work with. Poor in my own faculties, I +ever thought myself rich in theirs. In that period of difficulty and +danger, more especially, I consulted and sincerely coöperated with men +of all parties who seemed disposed to the same ends, or to any main part +of them. Nothing to prevent disorder was omitted: when it appeared, +nothing to subdue it was left uncounselled nor unexecuted, as far as I +could prevail. At the time I speak of, and having a momentary lead, so +aided and so encouraged, and as a feeble instrument in a mighty hand--I +do not say I saved my country; I am sure I did my country important +service. There were few, indeed, that did not at that time acknowledge +it,--and that time was thirteen years ago. It was but one voice, that no +man in the kingdom better deserved an honorable provision should be made +for him. So much for my general conduct through the whole of the +portentous crisis from 1780 to 1782, and the general sense then +entertained of that conduct by my country. But my character as a +reformer, in the particular instances which the Duke of Bedford refers +to, is so connected in principle with my opinions on the hideous changes +which have since barbarized France, and, spreading thence, threaten the +political and moral order of the whole world, that it seems to demand +something of a more detailed discussion. + +My economical reforms were not, as his Grace may think, the suppression +of a paltry pension or employment, more or less. Economy in my plans +was, as it ought to be, secondary, subordinate, instrumental. I acted on +state principles. I found a great distemper in the commonwealth, and +according to the nature of the evil and of the object I treated it. The +malady was deep; it was complicated, in the causes and in the symptoms. +Throughout it was full of contra-indicants. On one hand, government, +daily growing more invidious from an apparent increase of the means of +strength, was every day growing more contemptible by real weakness. Nor +was this dissolution confined to government commonly so called. It +extended to Parliament, which was losing not a little in its dignity and +estimation by an opinion of its not acting on worthy motives. On the +other hand, the desires of the people (partly natural and partly infused +into them by art) appeared in so wild and inconsiderate a manner with +regard to the economical object, (for I set aside for a moment the +dreadful tampering with the body of the Constitution itself,) that, if +their petitions had literally been complied with, the state would have +been convulsed, and a gate would have been opened through which all +property might be sacked and ravaged. Nothing could have saved the +public from the mischiefs of the false reform but its absurdity, which +would soon have brought itself, and with it all real reform, into +discredit. This would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the +people, who would know they had failed in the accomplishment of their +wishes, but who, like the rest of mankind in all ages, would impute the +blame to anything rather than to their own proceedings. But there were +then persons in the world who nourished complaint, and would have been +thoroughly disappointed, if the people were ever satisfied. I was not of +that humor. I wished that they _should_ be satisfied. It was my aim to +give to the people the substance of what I knew they desired, and what I +thought was right, whether they desired it or not, before it had been +modified for them into senseless petitions. I knew that there is a +manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak +men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding,--that is, a +marked distinction between change and reformation. The former alters the +substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential +good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is +novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of +reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle +upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. +Reform is not a change in the substance or in the primary modification +of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance +complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; +and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the +very worst, is but where it was. + +All this, in effect, I think, but am not sure, I have said elsewhere. It +cannot at this time be too often repeated, line upon line, precept upon +precept, until it comes into the currency of a proverb,--_To innovate is +not to reform_. The French revolutionists complained of everything; they +refused to reform anything; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all, +_unchanged_. The consequences are _before_ us,--not in remote history, +not in future prognostication: they are about us; they are upon us. They +shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment. They dwarf the +growth of the young; they break the quiet of the old. If we travel, they +stop our way. They infest us in town; they pursue us to the country. Our +business is interrupted, our repose is troubled, our pleasures are +saddened, our very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is +rendered worse than ignorance, by the enormous evils of this dreadful +innovation. The Revolution harpies of France, sprung from Night and +Hell, or from that chaotic Anarchy which generates equivocally "all +monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their +eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neighboring +state. These obscene harpies, who deck themselves in I know not what +divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of +prey, (both mothers and daughters,) flutter over our heads, and souse +down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or +unpolluted with the slime of their filthy offal.[15] + +If his Grace can contemplate the result of this complete innovation, or, +as some friends of his will call it, _reform_, in the whole body of its +solidity and compound mass, at which, as Hamlet says, the face of heaven +glows with horror and indignation, and which, in truth, makes every +reflecting mind and every feeling heart perfectly thought-sick, without +a thorough abhorrence of everything they say and everything they do, I +am amazed at the morbid strength or the natural infirmity of his mind. + +It was, then, not my love, but my hatred to innovation, that produced my +plan of reform. Without troubling myself with the exactness of the +logical diagram, I considered them as things substantially opposite. It +was to prevent that evil, that I proposed the measures which his Grace +is pleased, and I am not sorry he is pleased, to recall to my +recollection. I had (what I hope that noble Duke will remember in all +his operations) a state to preserve, as well as a state to reform. I had +a people to gratify, but not to inflame or to mislead. I do not claim +half the credit for what I did as for what I prevented from being done. +In that situation of the public mind, I did not undertake, as was then +proposed, to new-model the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or +to change the authority under which any officer of the crown acted, who +was suffered at all to exist. Crown, lords, commons, judicial system, +system of administration, existed as they had existed before, and in the +mode and manner in which they had always existed. My measures were, what +I then truly stated them to the House to be, in their intent, healing +and mediatorial. A complaint was made of too much influence in the House +of Commons: I reduced it in both Houses; and I gave my reasons, article +by article, for every reduction, and showed why I thought it safe for +the service of the state. I heaved the lead every inch of way I made. A +disposition to expense was complained of: to that I opposed, not mere +retrenchment, but a system of economy, which would make a random +expense, without plan or foresight, in future, not easily practicable. I +proceeded upon principles of research to put me in possession of my +matter, on principles of method to regulate it, and on principles in the +human mind and in civil affairs to secure and perpetuate the operation. +I conceived nothing arbitrarily, nor proposed anything to be done by the +will and pleasure of others or my own,--but by reason, and by reason +only. I have ever abhorred, since the first dawn of my understanding to +this its obscure twilight, all the operations of opinion, fancy, +inclination, and will, in the affairs of government, where only a +sovereign reason, paramount to all forms of legislation and +administration, should dictate. Government is made for the very purpose +of opposing that reason to will and to caprice, in the reformers or in +the reformed, in the governors or in the governed, in kings, in senates, +or in people. + +On a careful review, therefore, and analysis of all the component parts +of the civil list, and on weighing them against each other, in order to +make as much as possible all of them a subject of estimate, (the +foundation and corner-stone of all regular, provident economy,) it +appeared to me evident that this was impracticable, whilst that part +called the pension list was totally discretionary in its amount. For +this reason, and for this only, I proposed to reduce it, both in its +gross quantity and in its larger individual proportions, to a certainty; +lest, if it were left without a _general_ limit, it might eat up the +civil list service,--if suffered to be granted in portions too great for +the fund, it might defeat its own end, and, by unlimited allowances to +some, it might disable the crown in means of providing for others. The +pension list was to be kept as a sacred fund; but it could not be kept +as a constant, open fund, sufficient for growing demands, if some +demands would wholly devour it. The tenor of the act will show that it +regarded the civil list _only_, the reduction of which to some sort of +estimate was my great object. + +No other of the crown funds did I meddle with, because they had not the +same relations. This of the four and a half per cents does his Grace +imagine had escaped me, or had escaped all the men of business who acted +with me in those regulations? I knew that such a fund existed, and that +pensions had been always granted on it, before his Grace was born. This +fund was full in my eye. It was full in the eyes of those who worked +with me. It was left on principle. On principle I did what was then +done; and on principle what was left undone was omitted. I did not dare +to rob the nation of all funds to reward merit. If I pressed this point +too close, I acted contrary to the avowed principles on which I went. +Gentlemen are very fond of quoting me; but if any one thinks it worth +his while to know the rules that guided me in my plan of reform, he will +read my printed speech on that subject, at least what is contained from +page 230 to page 241 in the second volume of the collection[16] which a +friend has given himself the trouble to make of my publications. Be this +as it may, these two bills (though achieved with the greatest labor, and +management of every sort, both within and without the House) were only a +part, and but a small part, of a very large system, comprehending all +the objects I stated in opening my proposition, and, indeed, many more, +which I just hinted at in my speech to the electors of Bristol, when I +was put out of that representation. All these, in some state or other of +forwardness, I have long had by me. + +But do I justify his Majesty's grace on these grounds? I think them the +least of my services. The time gave them an occasional value. What I +have done in the way of political economy was far from confined to this +body of measures. I did not come into Parliament to con my lesson. I had +earned my pension before I set my foot in St. Stephen's Chapel. I was +prepared and disciplined to this political warfare. The first session I +sat in Parliament, I found it necessary to analyze the whole commercial, +financial, constitutional, and foreign interests of Great Britain and +its empire. A great deal was then done; and more, far more, would have +been done, if more had been permitted by events. Then, in the vigor of +my manhood, my constitution sunk under my labor. Had I then died, (and +I seemed to myself very near death,) I had then earned for those who +belonged to me more than the Duke of Bedford's ideas of service are of +power to estimate. But, in truth, these services I am called to account +for are not those on which I value myself the most. If I were to call +for a reward, (which I have never done,) it should be for those in which +for fourteen years without intermission I showed the most industry and +had the least success: I mean in the affairs of India. They are those on +which I value myself the most: most for the importance, most for the +labor, most for the judgment, most for constancy and perseverance in the +pursuit. Others may value them most for the _intention_. In that, +surely, they are not mistaken. + +Does his Grace think that they who advised the crown to make my retreat +easy considered me only as an economist? That, well understood, however, +is a good deal. If I had not deemed it of some value, I should not have +made political economy an object of my humble studies from my very early +youth to near the end of my service in Parliament, even before (at least +to any knowledge of mine) it had employed the thoughts of speculative +men in other parts of Europe. At that time it was still in its infancy +in England, where, in the last century, it had its origin. Great and +learned men thought my studies were not wholly thrown away, and deigned +to communicate with me now and then on some particulars of their +immortal works. Something of these studies may appear incidentally in +some of the earliest things I published. The House has been witness to +their effect, and has profited of them, more or less, for above +eight-and-twenty years. + +To their estimate I leave the matter. I was not, like his Grace of +Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator: "_Nitor in +adversum_" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the +qualities nor cultivated one of the arts that recommend men to the favor +and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As +little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts by imposing on the +understandings of the people. At every step of my progress in life, (for +in every step was I traversed and opposed,) and at every turnpike I met, +I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole +title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was +not wholly unacquainted with its laws and the whole system of its +interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration +even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, +please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, +to the last gasp will I stand. + +Had his Grace condescended to inquire concerning the person whom he has +not thought it below him to reproach, he might have found, that, in the +whole course of my life, I have never, on any pretence of economy, or on +any other pretence, so much as in a single instance, stood between any +man and his reward of service or his encouragement in useful talent and +pursuit, from the highest of those services and pursuits to the lowest. +On the contrary, I have on an hundred occasions exerted myself with +singular zeal to forward every man's even tolerable pretensions. I have +more than once had good-natured reprehensions from my friends for +carrying the matter to something bordering on abuse. This line of +conduct, whatever its merits might be, was partly owing to natural +disposition, but I think full as much to reason and principle. I looked +on the consideration of public service or public ornament to be real and +very justice; and I ever held a scanty and penurious justice to partake +of the nature of a wrong. I held it to be, in its consequences, the +worst economy in the world. In saving money I soon can count up all the +good I do; but when by a cold penury I blast the abilities of a nation, +and stunt the growth of its active energies, the ill I may do is beyond +all calculation. Whether it be too much or too little, whatever I have +done has been general and systematic. I have never entered into those +trifling vexations and oppressive details that have been falsely and +most ridiculously laid to my charge. + +Did I blame the pensions given to Mr. Barré and Mr. Dunning between the +proposition and execution of my plan? No! surely, no! Those pensions +were within my principles. I assert it, those gentlemen deserved their +pensions, their titles,--all they had; and if more they had, I should +have been but pleased the more. They were men of talents; they were men +of service. I put the profession of the law out of the question in one +of them. It is a service that rewards itself. But their _public +service_, though from their abilities unquestionably of more value than +mine, in its quantity and in its duration was not to be mentioned with +it. But I never could drive a hard bargain in my life, concerning any +matter whatever; and least of all do I know how to haggle and huckster +with merit. Pension for myself I obtained none; nor did I solicit any. +Yet I was loaded with hatred for everything that was withheld, and with +obloquy for everything that was given. I was thus left to support the +grants of a name ever dear to me and ever venerable to the world in +favor of those who were no friends of mine or of his, against the rude +attacks of those who were at that time friends to the grantees and their +own zealous partisans. I have never heard the Earl of Lauderdale +complain of these pensions. He finds nothing wrong till he comes to me. +This is impartiality, in the true, modern, revolutionary style. + +Whatever I did at that time, so far as it regarded order and economy, is +stable and eternal, as all principles must be. A particular order of +things may be altered: order itself cannot lose its value. As to other +particulars, they are variable by time and by circumstances. Laws of +regulation are not fundamental laws. The public exigencies are the +masters of all such laws. They rule the laws, and are not to be ruled by +them. They who exercise the legislative power at the time must judge. + +It may be new to his Grace, but I beg leave to tell him that mere +parsimony is not economy. It is separable in theory from it; and in fact +it may or it may not be a _part_ of economy, according to circumstances. +Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If +parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, +there is, however, another and an higher economy. Economy is a +distributive virtue, and consists, not in saving, but in selection. +Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, +no comparison, no judgment. Mere instinct, and that not an instinct of +the noblest kind, may produce this false economy in perfection. The +other economy has larger views. It demands a discriminating judgment, +and a firm, sagacious mind. It shuts one door to impudent importunity, +only to open another, and a wider, to unpresuming merit. If none but +meritorious service or real talent were to be rewarded, this nation has +not wanted, and this nation will not want, the means of rewarding all +the service it ever will receive, and encouraging all the merit it ever +will produce. No state, since the foundation of society, has been +impoverished by that species of profusion. Had the economy of selection +and proportion been at all times observed, we should not now have had an +overgrown Duke of Bedford, to oppress the industry of humble men, and to +limit, by the standard of his own conceptions, the justice, the bounty, +or, if he pleases, the charity of the crown. + +His Grace may think as meanly as he will of my deserts in the far +greater part of my conduct in life. It is free for him to do so. There +will always be some difference of opinion in the value of political +services. But there is one merit of mine which he, of all men living, +ought to be the last to call in question. I have supported with very +great zeal, and I am told with some degree of success, those opinions, +or, if his Grace likes another expression better, those old prejudices, +which buoy up the ponderous mass of his nobility, wealth, and titles. I +have omitted no exertion to prevent him and them from sinking to that +level to which the meretricious French faction his Grace at least +coquets with omit no exertion to reduce both. I have done all I could to +discountenance their inquiries into the fortunes of those who hold large +portions of wealth without any apparent merit of their own. I have +strained every nerve to keep the Duke of Bedford in that situation +which alone makes him my superior. Your Lordship has been a witness of +the use he makes of that preëminence. + +But be it that this is virtue; be it that there is virtue in this +well-selected rigor: yet all virtues are not equally becoming to all men +and at all times. There are crimes, undoubtedly there are crimes, which +in all seasons of our existence ought to put a generous antipathy in +action,--crimes that provoke an indignant justice, and call forth a warm +and animated pursuit. But all things that concern what I may call the +preventive police of morality, all things merely rigid, harsh, and +censorial, the antiquated moralists at whose feet I was brought up would +not have thought these the fittest matter to form the favorite virtues +of young men of rank. What might have been well enough, and have been +received with a veneration mixed with awe and terror, from an old, +severe, crabbed Cato, would have wanted something of propriety in the +young Scipios, the ornament of the Roman nobility, in the flower of +their life. But the times, the morals, the masters, the scholars, have +all undergone a thorough revolution. It is a vile, illiberal school, +this new French academy of the _sans-culottes_. There is nothing in it +that is fit for a gentleman to learn. + +Whatever its vogue may be, I still flatter myself that the parents of +the growing generation will be satisfied with what is to be taught to +their children in Westminster, in Eton, or in Winchester; I still +indulge the hope that no _grown_ gentleman or nobleman of our time will +think of finishing at Mr. Thelwall's lecture whatever may have been left +incomplete at the old universities of his country. I would give to Lord +Grenville and Mr. Pitt for a motto what was said of a Roman censor or +prætor (or what was he?) who in virtue of a _Senatusconsultum_ shut up +certain academies,--"_Cludere ludum impudentiæ jussit_." Every honest +father of a family in the kingdom will rejoice at the breaking-up for +the holidays, and will pray that there may be a very long vacation, in +all such schools. + +The awful state of the time, and not myself, or my own justification, is +my true object in what I now write, or in what I shall ever write or +say. It little signifies to the world what becomes of such things as me, +or even as the Duke of Bedford. What I say about either of us is nothing +more than a vehicle, as you, my Lord, will easily perceive, to convey my +sentiments on matters far more worthy of your attention. It is when I +stick to my apparent first subject that I ought to apologize, not when I +depart from it. I therefore must beg your Lordship's pardon for again +resuming it after this very short digression,--assuring you that I shall +never altogether lose sight of such matter as persons abler than I am +may turn to some profit. + +The Duke of Bedford conceives that he is obliged to call the attention +of the House of Peers to his Majesty's grant to me, which he considers +as excessive and out of all bounds. + +I know not how it has happened, but it really seems, that, whilst his +Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fell into a +sort of sleep. Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as +dreams (even his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-pieced and +incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to +_me_, but took the subject-matter from the crown grants _to his own +family_. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way +of putting things together his Grace is perfectly in the right. The +grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage +economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the +leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his +unwieldy bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. +Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a +creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very +spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, +and covers me all over with the spray, everything of him and about him +is from the throne. Is it for _him_ to question the dispensation of the +royal favor? + +I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public +merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and +these services of mine, on the favorable construction of which I have +obtained what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life I have not +at all the honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke; but I ought to +presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves +the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to public service, +why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself, in +rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, +with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services +and my attempts to be useful to my country. It would not be gross +adulation, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his +own to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed +pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are original and +personal: his are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original +pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit which makes +his Grace so very delicate and exceptious about the merit of all other +grantees of the crown. Had he permitted me to remain in quiet, I should +have said, "'Tis his estate: that's enough. It is his by law: what have +I to do with it or its history?" He would naturally have said, on his +side, "'Tis this man's fortune. He is as good now as my ancestor was two +hundred and fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions; he +is an old man with very young pensions: that's all." + +Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my +little merit with that which obtained from the crown those prodigies of +profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of humble and +laborious individuals? I would willingly leave him to the Herald's +College, which the philosophy of the _sans-culottes_ (prouder by far +than all the Garters, and Norroys, and Clarencieux, and Rouge-Dragons +that ever pranced in a procession of what his friends call aristocrats +and despots) will abolish with contumely and scorn. These historians, +recorders, and blazoners of virtues and arms differ wholly from that +other description of historians who never assign any act of politicians +to a good motive. These gentle historians, on the contrary, dip their +pens in nothing but the milk of human kindness. They seek no further for +merit than the preamble of a patent or the inscription on a tomb. With +them every man created a peer is first an hero ready-made. They judge of +every man's capacity for office by the offices he has filled; and the +more offices, the more ability. Every general officer with them is a +Marlborough, every statesman a Burleigh, every judge a Murray or a +Yorke. They who, alive, were laughed at or pitied by all their +acquaintance make as good a figure as the best of them in the pages of +Guillim, Edmondson, and Collins. + +To these recorders, so full of good-nature to the great and prosperous, +I would willingly leave the first Baron Russell and Earl of Bedford, and +the merits of his grants. But the aulnager, the weigher, the meter of +grants will not suffer us to acquiesce in the judgment of the prince +reigning at the time when they were made. They are never good to those +who earn them. Well, then, since the new grantees have war made on them +by the old, and that the word of the sovereign is not to be taken, let +us turn our eyes to history, in which great men have always a pleasure +in contemplating the heroic origin of their house. + +The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, was a Mr. +Russell, a person of an ancient gentleman's family, raised by being a +minion of Henry the Eighth. As there generally is some resemblance of +character to create these relations, the favorite was in all likelihood +much such another as his master. The first of those immoderate grants +was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent +confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land. The lion, having +sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in +waiting. Having tasted once the food of confiscation, the favorites +became fierce and ravenous. This worthy favorite's first grant was from +the lay nobility. The second, infinitely improving on the enormity of +the first, was from the plunder of the Church. In truth, his Grace is +somewhat excusable for his dislike to a grant like mine, not only in its +quantity, but in its kind, so different from his own. + +Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign: his from Henry the +Eighth. + +Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of +illustrious rank,[17] or in the pillage of any body of unoffending men. +His grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments +iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by the +lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door. + +The merit of the grantee whom he derives from was that of being a prompt +and greedy instrument of a _levelling_ tyrant, who oppressed all +descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on +everything that was _great and noble_. Mine has been in endeavoring to +screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in +defending the high and eminent, who, in the bad times of confiscating +princes, confiscating chief governors, or confiscating demagogues, are +the most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy. + +The merit of the original grantee of his Grace's pensions was in giving +his hand to the work, and partaking the spoil, with a prince who +plundered a part of the national Church of his time and country. Mine +was in defending the whole of the national Church of my own time and my +own country, and the whole of the national Churches of all countries, +from the principles and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical +pillage, thence to a contempt of _all_ prescriptive titles, thence to +the pillage of _all_ property, and thence to universal desolation. + +The merit of the origin of his Grace's fortune was in being a favorite +and chief adviser to a prince who left no liberty to their native +country. My endeavor was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in +which I was born, and for all descriptions and denominations in it. Mine +was to support with unrelaxing vigilance every right, every privilege, +every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer, and more comprehensive +country; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief seat of +empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language, +and religion, in the vast domain that still is under the protection, and +the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown. + +His founder's merits were, by arts in which he served his master and +made his fortune, to bring poverty, wretchedness, and depopulation on +his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the +commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of his kingdom,--in which his +Majesty shows an eminent example, who even in his amusements is a +patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native soil. + +His founder's merit was the merit of a gentleman raised by the arts of a +court and the protection of a Wolsey to the eminence of a great and +potent lord. His merit in that eminence was, by instigating a tyrant to +injustice, to provoke a people to rebellion. My merit was, to awaken the +sober part of the country, that they might put themselves on their +guard against any one potent lord, or any greater number of potent +lords, or any combination of great leading men of any sort, if ever they +should attempt to proceed in the same courses, but in the reverse +order,--that is, by instigating a corrupted populace to rebellion, and, +through that rebellion, introducing a tyranny yet worse than the tyranny +which his Grace's ancestor supported, and of which he profited in the +manner we behold in the despotism of Henry the Eighth. + +The political merit of the first pensioner of his Grace's house was that +of being concerned as a counsellor of state in advising, and in his +person executing, the conditions of a dishonorable peace with +France,--the surrendering the fortress of Boulogne, then our outguard on +the Continent. By that surrender, Calais, the key of France, and the +bridle in the mouth of that power, was not many years afterwards finally +lost. My merit has been in resisting the power and pride of France, +under any form of its rule; but in opposing it with the greatest zeal +and earnestness, when that rule appeared in the worst form it could +assume,--the worst, indeed, which the prime cause and principle of all +evil could possibly give it. It was my endeavor by every means to excite +a spirit in the House, where I had the honor of a seat, for carrying on +with early vigor and decision the most clearly just and necessary war +that this or any nation ever carried on, in order to save my country +from the iron yoke of its power, and from the more dreadful contagion of +its principles,--to preserve, while they can be preserved, pure and +untainted, the ancient, inbred integrity, piety, good-nature, and +good-humor of the people of England, from the dreadful pestilence which, +beginning in France, threatens to lay waste the whole moral and in a +great degree the whole physical world, having done both in the focus of +its most intense malignity. + +The labors of his Grace's founder merited the "curses, not loud, but +deep," of the Commons of England, on whom _he_ and his master had +effected a _complete Parliamentary Reform_, by making them, in their +slavery and humiliation, the true and adequate representatives of a +debased, degraded, and undone people. My merits were in having had an +active, though not always an ostentatious share, in every one act, +without exception, of undisputed constitutional utility in my time, and +in having supported, on all occasions, the authority, the efficiency, +and the privileges of the Commons of Great Britain. I ended my services +by a recorded and fully reasoned assertion on their own journals of +their constitutional rights, and a vindication of their constitutional +conduct. I labored in all things to merit their inward approbation, and +(along with the assistants of the largest, the greatest, and best of my +endeavors) I received their free, unbiased, public, and solemn thanks. + +Thus stands the account of the comparative merits of the crown grants +which compose the Duke of Bedford's fortune as balanced against mine. In +the name of common sense, why should the Duke of Bedford think that none +but of the House of Russell are entitled to the favor of the crown? Why +should he imagine that no king of England has been capable of judging of +merit but King Henry the Eighth? Indeed, he will pardon me, he is a +little mistaken: all virtue did not end in the first Earl of Bedford; +all discernment did not lose its vision when his creator closed his +eyes. Let him remit his rigor on the disproportion between merit and +reward in others, and they will make no inquiry into the origin of his +fortune. They will regard with much more satisfaction, as he will +contemplate with infinitely more advantage, whatever in his pedigree has +been dulcified by an exposure to the influence of heaven in a long flow +of generations from the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of the +spring. It is little to be doubted that several of his forefathers in +that long series have degenerated into honor and virtue. Let the Duke of +Bedford (I am sure he will) reject with scorn and horror the counsels of +the lecturers, those wicked panders to avarice and ambition, who would +tempt him, in the troubles of his country, to seek another enormous +fortune from the forfeitures of another nobility and the plunder of +another Church. Let him (and I trust that yet he will) employ all the +energy of his youth and all the resources of his wealth to crush +rebellious principles which have no foundation in morals, and rebellious +movements that have no provocation in tyranny. + +Then will be forgot the rebellions which, by a doubtful priority in +crime, his ancestor had provoked and extinguished. On such a conduct in +the noble Duke, many of his countrymen might, and with some excuse +might, give way to the enthusiasm of their gratitude, and, in the +dashing style of some of the old declaimers, cry out, that, if the Fates +had found no other way in which they could give a[18] Duke of Bedford +and his opulence as props to a tottering world, then the butchery of +the Duke of Buckingham might be tolerated; it might be regarded even +with complacency, whilst in the heir of confiscation they saw the +sympathizing comforter of the martyrs who suffer under the cruel +confiscation of this day, whilst they beheld with admiration his zealous +protection of the virtuous and loyal nobility of France, and his manly +support of his brethren, the yet standing nobility and gentry of his +native land. Then his Grace's merit would be pure and new and sharp, as +fresh from the mint of honor. As he pleased, he might reflect honor on +his predecessors, or throw it forward on those who were to succeed him. +He might be the propagator of the stock of honor, or the root of it, as +he thought proper. + +Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should +have been, according to my mediocrity and the mediocrity of the age I +live in, a sort of founder of a family: I should have left a son, who, +in all the points in which personal merit can be viewed, in science, in +erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in generosity, in humanity, in +every liberal sentiment and every liberal accomplishment, would not have +shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom +he traces in his line. His Grace very soon would have wanted all +plausibility in his attack upon that provision which belonged more to +mine than to me. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and +symmetrized every disproportion. It would not have been for that +successor to resort to any stagnant, wasting reservoir of merit in me, +or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, living spring of +generous and manly action. Every day he lived he would have repurchased +the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had +received. He was made a public creature, and had no enjoyment whatever +but in the performance of some duty. At this exigent moment the loss of +a finished man is not easily supplied. + +But a Disposer whose power we are little able to resist, and whose +wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another +manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. +The storm has gone over me; and I lie like one of those old oaks which +the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my +honors, I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth. +There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognize the Divine +justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself +before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of +unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After +some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted +himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him +blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal +asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to +read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am +alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I +greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of +refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is +the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an +indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to +shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain and poverty and +disease. It is an instinct; and under the direction of reason, instinct +is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who ought to +have succeeded me are gone before me. They who should have been to me as +posterity are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation +(which ever must subsist in memory) that act of piety which he would +have performed to me: I owe it to him to show that he was not descended, +as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. + +The crown has considered me after long service: the crown has paid the +Duke of Bedford by advance. He has had a long credit for any service +which he may perform hereafter. He is secure, and long may he be secure, +in his advance, whether he performs any services or not. But let him +take care how he endangers the safety of that Constitution which secures +his own utility or his own insignificance, or how he discourages those +who take up even puny arms to defend an order of things which, like the +sun of heaven, shines alike on the useful and the worthless. His grants +are ingrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar +of innumerable ages. They are guarded by the sacred rules of +prescription, found in that full treasury of jurisprudence from which +the jejuneness and penury of our municipal law has by degrees been +enriched and strengthened. This prescription I had my share (a very full +share) in bringing to its perfection.[19] The Duke of Bedford will stand +as long as prescriptive law endures,--as long as the great, stable laws +of property, common to us with all civilized nations, are kept in their +integrity, and without the smallest intermixture of the laws, maxims, +principles, or precedents of the Grand Revolution. They are secure +against all changes but one. The whole Revolutionary system, institutes, +digest, code, novels, text, gloss, comment, are not only not the same, +but they are the very reverse, and the reverse fundamentally, of all the +laws on which civil life has hitherto been upheld in all the governments +of the world. The learned professors of the Rights of Man regard +prescription not as a title to bar all claim set up against old +possession, but they look on prescription as itself a bar against the +possessor and proprietor. They hold an immemorial possession to be no +more than a long continued and therefore an aggravated injustice. + +Such are _their_ ideas, such _their_ religion, and such _their_ law. But +as to _our_ country and _our_ race, as long as the well-compacted +structure of our Church and State, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of +that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress +at once and a temple,[20] shall stand inviolate on the brow of the +British Sion,--as long as the British monarchy, not more limited than +fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud Keep of +Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double +belt of its kindred and coëval towers, as long as this awful structure +shall oversee and guard the subjected land,--so long the mounds and +dikes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all +the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our sovereign +lord the king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this +realm,--the triple cord which no man can break,--the solemn, sworn, +constitutional frank-pledge of this nation,--the firm guaranties of +each other's being and each other's rights,--the joint and several +securities, each in its place and order, for every kind and every +quality of property and of dignity,--as long as these ensure, so long +the Duke of Bedford is safe, and we are all safe together,--the high +from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity, the low from +the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen! +and so be it! and so it will be,-- + + Dum domus Æneæ Capitolî immobile saxum + Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit. + +But if the rude inroad of Gallic tumult, with its sophistical rights of +man to falsify the account, and its sword as a make-weight to throw into +the scale, shall be introduced into our city by a misguided populace, +set on by proud great men, themselves blinded and intoxicated by a +frantic ambition, we shall all of us perish and be overwhelmed in a +common ruin. If a great storm blow on our coast, it will cast the whales +on the strand, as well as the periwinkles. His Grace will not survive +the poor grantee he despises,--no, not for a twelvemonth. If the great +look for safety in the services they render to this Gallic cause, it is +to be foolish even above the weight of privilege allowed to wealth. If +his Grace be one of these whom they endeavor to proselytize, he ought to +be aware of the character of the sect whose doctrines he is invited to +embrace. With them insurrection is the most sacred of revolutionary +duties to the state. Ingratitude to benefactors is the first of +revolutionary virtues. Ingratitude is, indeed, their four cardinal +virtues compacted and amalgamated into one; and he will find it in +everything that has happened since the commencement of the philosophic +Revolution to this hour. If he pleads the merit of having performed the +duty of insurrection against the order he lives in, (God forbid he ever +should!) the merit of others will be to perform the duty of insurrection +against him. If he pleads (again God forbid he should, and I do not +suspect he will) his ingratitude to the crown for its creation of his +family, others will plead their right and duty to pay him in kind. They +will laugh, indeed they will laugh, at his parchment and his wax. His +deeds will be drawn out with the rest of the lumber of his +evidence-room, and burnt to the tune of _Ça, ira_ in the courts of +Bedford (then Equality) House. + +Am I to blame, if I attempt to pay his Grace's hostile reproaches to me +with a friendly admonition to himself? Can I be blamed for pointing out +to him in what manner he is like to be affected, if the sect of the +cannibal philosophers of France should proselytize any considerable part +of this people, and, by their joint proselytizing arms, should conquer +that government to which his Grace does not seem to me to give all the +support his own security demands? Surely it is proper that he, and that +others like him, should know the true genius of this sect,--what their +opinions are,--what they have done, and to whom,--and what (if a +prognostic is to be formed from the dispositions and actions of men) it +is certain they will do hereafter. He ought to know that they have sworn +assistance, the only engagement they ever will keep, to all in this +country who bear a resemblance to themselves, and who think, as such, +that _the whole duty of man_ consists in destruction. They are a +misallied and disparaged branch of the House of Nimrod. They are the +Duke of Bedford's natural hunters; and he is their natural game. Because +he is not very profoundly reflecting, he sleeps in profound security: +they, on the contrary, are always vigilant, active, enterprising, and, +though far removed from any knowledge which makes men estimable or +useful, in all the instruments and resources of evil their leaders are +not meanly instructed or insufficiently furnished. In the French +Revolution everything is new, and, from want of preparation to meet so +unlooked-for an evil, everything is dangerous. Never before this time +was a set of literary men converted into a gang of robbers and +assassins; never before did a den of bravoes and banditti assume the +garb and tone of an academy of philosophers. + +Let me tell his Grace, that an union of such characters, monstrous as it +seems, is not made for producing despicable enemies. But if they are +formidable as foes, as friends they are dreadful indeed. The men of +property in France, confiding in a force which seemed to be irresistible +because it had never been tried, neglected to prepare for a conflict +with their enemies at their own weapons. They were found in such a +situation as the Mexicans were, when they were attacked by the dogs, the +cavalry, the iron, and the gunpowder of an handful of bearded men, whom +they did not know to exist in Nature. This is a comparison that some, I +think, have made; and it is just. In France they had their enemies +within their houses. They were even in the bosoms of many of them. But +they had not sagacity to discern their savage character. They seemed +tame, and even caressing. They had nothing but _douce humanité_ in their +mouth. They could not bear the punishment of the mildest laws on the +greatest criminals. The slightest severity of justice made their flesh +creep. The very idea that war existed in the world disturbed their +repose. Military glory was no more, with them, than a splendid infamy. +Hardly would they hear of self-defence, which they reduced within such +bounds as to leave it no defence at all. All this while they meditated +the confiscations and massacres we have seen. Had any one told these +unfortunate noblemen and gentlemen how and by whom the grand fabric of +the French monarchy under which they flourished would be subverted, they +would not have pitied him as a visionary, but would have turned from him +as what they call a _mauvais plaisant_. Yet we have seen what has +happened. The persons who have suffered from the cannibal philosophy of +France are so like the Duke of Bedford, that nothing but his Grace's +probably not speaking quite so good French could enable us to find out +any difference. A great many of them had as pompous titles as he, and +were of full as illustrious a race; some few of them had fortunes as +ample; several of them, without meaning the least disparagement to the +Duke of Bedford, were as wise, and as virtuous, and as valiant, and as +well educated, and as complete in all the lineaments of men of honor, as +he is; and to all this they had added the powerful outguard of a +military profession, which, in its nature, renders men somewhat more +cautious than those who have nothing to attend to but the lazy enjoyment +of undisturbed possessions. But security was their ruin. They are +dashed to pieces in the storm, and our shores are covered with the +wrecks. If they had been aware that such a thing might happen, such a +thing never could have happened. + +I assure his Grace, that, if I state to him the designs of his enemies +in a manner which may appear to him ludicrous and impossible, I tell him +nothing that has not exactly happened, point by point, but twenty-four +miles from our own shore. I assure him that the Frenchified faction, +more encouraged than others are warned by what has happened in France, +look at him and his landed possessions as an object at once of curiosity +and rapacity. He is made for them in every part of their double +character. As robbers, to them he is a noble booty; as speculatists, he +is a glorious subject for their experimental philosophy. He affords +matter for an extensive analysis in all the branches of their science, +geometrical, physical, civil, and political. These philosophers are +fanatics: independent of any interest, which, if it operated alone, +would make them much more tractable, they are carried with such an +headlong rage towards every desperate trial that they would sacrifice +the whole human race to the slightest of their experiments. I am better +able to enter into the character of this description of men than the +noble Duke can be. I have lived long and variously in the world. Without +any considerable pretensions to literature in myself, I have aspired to +the love of letters. I have lived for a great many years in habitudes +with those who professed them. I can form a tolerable estimate of what +is likely to happen from a character chiefly dependent for fame and +fortune on knowledge and talent, as well in its morbid and perverted +state as in that which is sound and natural. Naturally, men so formed +and finished are the first gifts of Providence to the world. But when +they have once thrown off the fear of God, which was in all ages too +often the case, and the fear of man, which is now the case, and when in +that state they come to understand one another, and to act in corps, a +more dreadful calamity cannot arise out of hell to scourge mankind. +Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred +metaphysician. It comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked spirit +than to the frailty and passion of a man. It is like that of the +Principle of Evil himself, incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, +defecated evil. It is no easy operation to eradicate humanity from the +human breast. What Shakspeare calls the "compunctious visitings of +Nature" will sometimes knock at their hearts, and protest against their +murderous speculations. But they have a means of compounding with their +nature. Their humanity is not dissolved; they only give it a long +prorogation. They are ready to declare that they do not think two +thousand years too long a period for the good that they pursue. It is +remarkable that they never see any way to their projected good but by +the road of some evil. Their imagination is not fatigued with the +contemplation of human suffering through the wild waste of centuries +added to centuries of misery and desolation. Their humanity is at their +horizon,--and, like the horizon, it always flies before them. The +geometricians and the chemists bring, the one from the dry bones of +their diagrams, and the other from the soot of their furnaces, +dispositions that make them worse than indifferent about those feelings +and habitudes which are the supports of the moral world. Ambition is +come upon them suddenly; they are intoxicated with it, and it has +rendered them fearless of the danger which may from thence arise to +others or to themselves. These philosophers consider men in their +experiments no more than they do mice in an air-pump or in a recipient +of mephitic gas. Whatever his Grace may think of himself, they look upon +him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they +do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal that has been +long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, +velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon two legs or +upon four. + +His Grace's landed possessions are irresistibly inviting to an agrarian +experiment. They are a downright insult upon the rights of man. They are +more extensive than the territory of many of the Grecian republics; and +they are without comparison more fertile than most of them. There are +now republics in Italy, in Germany, and in Switzerland, which do not +possess anything like so fair and ample a domain. There is scope for +seven philosophers to proceed in their analytical experiments upon +Harrington's seven different forms of republics, in the acres of this +one Duke. Hitherto they have been wholly unproductive to +speculation,--fitted for nothing but to fatten bullocks, and to produce +grain for beer, still more to stupefy the dull English understanding. +Abbé Sieyès has whole nests of pigeon-holes full of constitutions +ready-made, ticketed, sorted, and numbered, suited to every season and +every fancy: some with the top of the pattern at the bottom, and some +with the bottom at the top; some plain, some flowered; some +distinguished for their simplicity, others for their complexity; some of +blood color, some of _boue de Paris_; some with directories, others +without a direction; some with councils of elders and councils of +youngsters, some without any council at all; some where the electors +choose the representatives, others where the representatives choose the +electors; some in long coats, and some in short cloaks; some with +pantaloons, some without breeches; some with five-shilling +qualifications, some totally unqualified. So that no +constitution-fancier may go unsuited from his shop, provided he loves a +pattern of pillage, oppression, arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation, +exile, revolutionary judgment, and legalized premeditated murder, in any +shapes into which they can be put. What a pity it is that the progress +of experimental philosophy should be checked by his Grace's monopoly! +Such are their sentiments, I assure him; such is their language, when +they dare to speak; and such are their proceedings, when they have the +means to act. + +Their geographers and geometricians have been some time out of practice. +It is some time since they have divided their own country into squares. +That figure has lost the charms of its novelty. They want new lands for +new trials. It is not only the geometricians of the Republic that find +him a good subject: the chemists have bespoke him, after the +geometricians have done with him. As the first set have an eye on his +Grace's lands, the chemists are not less taken with his buildings. They +consider mortar as a very anti-revolutionary invention, in its present +state, but, properly employed, an admirable material for overturning all +establishments. They have found that the gunpowder of _ruins_ is far +the fittest for making other _ruins_, and so _ad infinitum_. They have +calculated what quantity of matter convertible into nitre is to be found +in Bedford House, in Woburn Abbey, and in what his Grace and his +trustees have still suffered to stand of that foolish royalist, Inigo +Jones, in Covent Garden. Churches, play-houses, coffeehouses, all alike, +are destined to be mingled, and equalized, and blended into one common +rubbish,--and, well sifted, and lixiviated, to crystallize into true, +democratic, explosive, insurrectionary nitre. Their Academy _del +Cimento_, (_per antiphrasin_,) with Morveau and Hassenfratz at its head, +have computed that the brave _sans-culottes_ may make war on all the +aristocracy of Europe for a twelvemonth out of the rubbish of the Duke +of Bedford's buildings.[21] + +While the Morveaux and Priestleys are proceeding with these experiments +upon the Duke of Bedford's houses, the Sieyès, and the rest of the +analytical legislators and constitution-venders, are quite as busy in +their trade of decomposing organization, in forming his Grace's vassals +into primary assemblies, national guards, first, second, and third +requisitioners, committees of research, conductors of the travelling +guillotine, judges of revolutionary tribunals, legislative hangmen, +supervisors of domiciliary visitation, exactors of forced loans, and +assessors of the maximum. + +The din of all this smithery may some time or other possibly wake this +noble Duke, and push him to an endeavor to save some little matter from +their experimental philosophy. If he pleads his grants from the crown, +he is ruined at the outset. If he pleads he has received them from the +pillage of superstitious corporations, this indeed will stagger them a +little, because they are enemies to all corporations and to all +religion. However, they will soon recover themselves, and will tell his +Grace, or his learned council, that all such property belongs to the +_nation_,--and that it would be more wise for him, if he wishes to live +the natural term of a _citizen_, (that is, according to Condorcet's +calculation, six months on an average,) not to pass for an usurper upon +the national property. This is what the _serjeants_-at-law of the rights +of man will say to the puny _apprentices_ of the common law of England. + +Is the genius of philosophy not yet known? You may as well think the +garden of the Tuileries was well protected with the cords of ribbon +insultingly stretched by the National Assembly to keep the sovereign +_canaille_ from intruding on the retirement of the poor King of the +French as that such flimsy cobwebs will stand between the savages of the +Revolution and their natural prey. Deep philosophers are no triflers; +brave _sans-culottes_ are no formalists. They will no more regard a +Marquis of Tavistock than an Abbot of Tavistock; the Lord of Woburn will +not be more respectable in their eyes than the Prior of Woburn; they +will make no difference between the superior of a Covent Garden of nuns +and of a Covent Garden of another description. They will not care a rush +whether his coat is long or short,--whether the color be purple, or blue +and buff. They will not trouble _their_ heads with what part of _his_ +head his hair is out from; and they will look with equal respect on a +tonsure and a crop. Their only question will be that of their Legendre, +or some oilier of their legislative butchers: How he cuts up; how he +tallows in the caul or on the kidneys. + +Is it not a singular phenomenon, that, whilst the _sans-culotte_ +carcass-butchers and the philosophers of the shambles are pricking their +dotted lines upon his hide, and, like the print of the poor ox that we +see in the shop-windows at Charing Cross, alive as he is, and thinking +no harm in the world, he is divided into rumps, and sirloins, and +briskets, and into all sorts of pieces for roasting, boiling, and +stewing, that, all the while they are measuring _him_, his Grace is +measuring _me_,--is invidiously comparing the bounty of the crown with +the deserts of the defender of his order, and in the same moment fawning +on those who have the knife half out of the sheath? Poor innocent! + + "Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, + And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." + +No man lives too long who lives to do with spirit and suffer with +resignation what Providence pleases to command or inflict; but, indeed, +they are sharp incommodities which beset old age. It was but the other +day, that, on putting in order some things which had been brought here, +on my taking leave of London forever, I looked over a number of fine +portraits, most of them of persons now dead, but whose society, in my +better days, made this a proud and happy place. Amongst those was the +picture of Lord Keppel. It was painted by an artist worthy of the +subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest +youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for many years +without a moment of coldness, of peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to +the day of our final separation. + +I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his +age, and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. He was much in my +heart, and I believe I was in his to the very last beat. It was after +his trial at Portsmouth that he gave me this picture. With what zeal and +anxious affection I attended him through that his agony of glory,--what +part my son, in the early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue, and the +pious passion with which he attached himself to all my +connections,--with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in +courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, +just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. I +partook, indeed, of this honor with several of the first and best and +ablest in the kingdom, but I was behindhand with none of them; and I am +sure, that, if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total +annihilation of every trace of honor and virtue in it, things had taken +a different turn from what they did. I should have attended him to the +quarter-deck with no less good-will and more pride, though with far +other feelings, than I partook of the general flow of national joy that +attended the justice that was done to his virtue. + +Pardon, my Lord, the feeble garrulity of age, which loves to diffuse +itself in discourse of the departed great. At my years we live in +retrospect alone; and, wholly unfitted for the society of vigorous life, +we enjoy, the best balm to all wounds, the consolation of friendship, in +those only whom we have lost forever. Feeling the loss of Lord Keppel at +all times, at no time did I feel it so much as on the first day when I +was attacked in the House of Lords. + +Had he lived, that reverend form would have risen in its place, and, +with a mild, parental reprehension to his nephew, the Duke of Bedford, +he would have told him that the favor of that gracious prince who had +honored his virtues with the government of the navy of Great Britain, +and with a seat in the hereditary great council of his kingdom, was not +undeservedly shown to the friend of the best portion of his life, and +his faithful companion and counsellor under his rudest trials. He would +have told him, that, to whomever else these reproaches might be +becoming, they were not decorous in his near kindred. He would have told +him, that, when men in that rank lose decorum, they lose everything. + +On that day I had a loss in Lord Keppel. But the public loss of him in +this awful crisis!--I speak from much knowledge of the person: he never +would have listened to any compromise with the rabble rout of this +_sans-culotterie_ of France. His goodness of heart, his reason, his +taste, his public duty, his principles, his prejudices, would have +repelled him forever from all connection with that horrid medley of +madness, vice, impiety, and crime. + +Lord Keppel had two countries: one of descent, and one of birth. Their +interest and their glory are the same; and his mind was capacious of +both. His family was noble, and it was Dutch: that is, he was of the +oldest and purest nobility that Europe can boast, among a people +renowned above all others for love of their native land. Though it was +never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel was something +high. It was a wild stock of pride, on which the tenderest of all hearts +had grafted the milder virtues. He valued ancient nobility; and he was +not disinclined to augment it with new honors. He valued the old +nobility and the new, not as an excuse for inglorious sloth, but as an +incitement to virtuous activity. He considered it as a sort of cure for +selfishness and a narrow mind,--conceiving that a man born in an +elevated place in himself was nothing, but everything in what went +before and what was to come after him. Without much speculation, but by +the sure instinct of ingenuous feelings, and by the dictates of plain, +unsophisticated, natural understanding, he felt that no great +commonwealth could by any possibility long subsist without a body of +some kind or other of nobility decorated with honor and fortified by +privilege. This nobility forms the chain that connects the ages of a +nation, which otherwise (with Mr. Paine) would soon be taught that no +one generation can bind another. He felt that no political fabric could +be well made, without some such order of things as might, through a +series of time, afford a rational hope of securing unity, coherence, +consistency, and stability to the state. He felt that nothing else can +protect it against the levity of courts and the greater levity of the +multitude; that to talk of hereditary monarchy, without anything else of +hereditary reverence in the commonwealth, was a low-minded absurdity, +fit only for those detestable "fools aspiring to be knaves" who began to +forge in 1789 the false money of the French Constitution; that it is one +fatal objection to all _new_ fancied and _new fabricated_ republics, +(among a people who, once possessing such an advantage, have wickedly +and insolently rejected it,) that the _prejudice_ of an old nobility is +a thing that _cannot_ be made. It may be improved, it may be corrected, +it may be replenished; men may be taken from it or aggregated to it; but +_the thing itself_ is matter of _inveterate_ opinion, and therefore +_cannot_ be matter of mere positive institution. He felt that this +nobility, in fact, does not exist in wrong of other orders of the state, +but by them, and for them. + +I knew the man I speak of: and if we can divine the future out of what +we collect from the past, no person living would look with more scorn +and horror on the impious parricide committed on all their ancestry, and +on the desperate attainder passed on all their posterity, by the +Orléans, and the Rochefoucaults, and the Fayettes, and the Vicomtes de +Noailles, and the false Périgords, and the long _et cetera_ of the +perfidious _sans-culottes_ of the court, who, like demoniacs possessed +with a spirit of fallen pride and inverted ambition, abdicated their +dignities, disowned their families, betrayed the most sacred of all +trusts, and, by breaking to pieces a great link of society and all the +cramps and holdings of the state, brought eternal confusion and +desolation on their country. For the fate of the miscreant parricides +themselves he would have had no pity. Compassion for the myriads of men, +of whom the world was not worthy, who by their means have perished in +prisons or on scaffolds, or are pining in beggary and exile, would leave +no room in his, or in any well-formed mind, for any such sensation. We +are not made at once to pity the oppressor and the oppressed. + +Looking to his Batavian descent, how could he bear to behold his +kindred, the descendants of the brave nobility of Holland, whose blood, +prodigally poured out, had, more than all the canals, meres, and +inundations of their country, protected their independence, to behold +them bowed in the basest servitude to the basest and vilest of the human +race,--in servitude to those who in no respect were superior in dignity +or could aspire to a better place than that of hangmen to the tyrants to +whose sceptred pride they had opposed an elevation of soul that +surmounted and overpowered the loftiness of Castile, the haughtiness of +Austria, and the overbearing arrogance of France? + +Could he with patience bear that the children of that nobility who would +have deluged their country and given it to the sea rather than submit to +Louis the Fourteenth, who was then in his meridian glory, when his arms +were conducted by the Turennes, by the Luxembourgs, by the Boufflers, +when his councils were directed by the Colberts and the Louvois, when +his tribunals were filled by the Lamoignons and the D'Aguesseaus,--that +these should be given up to the cruel sport of the Pichegrus, the +Jourdans, the Santerres, under the Rolands, and Brissots, and Gorsas, +and Robespierres, the Reubells, the Carnots, and Talliens, and Dantons, +and the whole tribe of regicides, robbers, and revolutionary judges, +that from the rotten carcass of their own murdered country have poured +out innumerable swarms of the lowest and at once the most destructive of +the classes of animated Nature, which like columns of locusts have laid +waste the fairest part of the world? + +Would Keppel have borne to see the ruin of the virtuous patricians, that +happy union of the noble and the burgher, who with signal prudence and +integrity had long governed the cities of the confederate republic, the +cherishing fathers of their country, who, denying commerce to +themselves, made it flourish in a manner unexampled under their +protection? Could Keppel have borne that a vile faction should totally +destroy this harmonious construction, in favor of a robbing democracy +founded on the spurious rights of man? + +He was no great clerk, but he was perfectly well versed in the interests +of Europe, and he could not have heard with patience that the country of +Grotius, the cradle of the law of nations, and one of the richest +repositories of all law, should be taught a new code by the ignorant +flippancy of Thomas Paine, the presumptuous foppery of La Fayette, with +his stolen rights of man in his hand, the wild, profligate intrigue and +turbulency of Marat, and the impious sophistry of Condorcet, in his +insolent addresses to the Batavian Republic. + +Could Keppel, who idolized the House of Nassau, who was himself given to +England along with the blessings of the British and Dutch Revolutions, +with Revolutions of stability, with Revolutions which consolidated and +married the liberties and the interests of the two nations +forever,--could he see the fountain of British liberty itself in +servitude to France? Could he see with patience a Prince of Orange +expelled, as a sort of diminutive despot, with every kind of contumely, +from the country which that family of deliverers had so often rescued +from slavery, and obliged to live in exile in another country, which +owes its liberty to his house? + +Would Keppel have heard with patience that the conduct to be held on +such occasions was to become short by the knees to the faction of the +homicides, to entreat them quietly to retire? or, if the fortune of war +should drive them from their first wicked and unprovoked invasion, that +no security should be taken, no arrangement made, no barrier formed, no +alliance entered into for the security of that which under a foreign +name is the most precious part of England? What would he have said, if +it was even proposed that the Austrian Netherlands (which ought to be a +barrier to Holland, and the tie of an alliance to protect her against +any species of rule that might be erected or even be restored in France) +should be formed into a republic under her influence and dependent upon +her power? + +But above all, what would he have said, if he had heard it made a matter +of accusation against me, by his nephew, the Duke of Bedford, that I was +the author of the war? Had I a mind to keep that high distinction to +myself, (as from pride I might, but from justice I dare not,) he would +have snatched his share of it from my hand, and held it with the grasp +of a dying convulsion to his end. + +It would be a most arrogant presumption in me to assume to myself the +glory of what belongs to his Majesty, and to his ministers, and to his +Parliament, and to the far greater majority of his faithful people: but +had I stood alone to counsel, and that all were determined to be guided +by my advice, and to follow it implicitly, then I should have been the +sole author of a war. But it should have been a war on my ideas and my +principles. However, let his Grace think as he may of my demerits with +regard to the war with Regicide, he will find my guilt confined to that +alone. He never shall, with the smallest color of reason, accuse me of +being the author of a peace with Regicide.--But that is high matter, and +ought not to be mixed with anything of so little moment as what may +belong to me, or even to the Duke of Bedford. + +I have the honor to be, &c. + +EDMUND BURKE. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] + + Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec sævior ulla + Pestis et ira Deûm Stygiis sese extulit undis. + Virginei volucrum vultus, foedissima ventris + Proluvies, uncæque manus, et pallida semper + Ora fame. + +Here the poet breaks the line, because he (and that _he_ is Virgil) had +not verse or language to describe that monster even as he had conceived +her. Had he lived to our time, he would have been more overpowered with +the reality than he was with the imagination. Virgil only knew the +horror of the times before him. Had he lived to see the revolutionists +and constitutionalists of France, he would have had more horrid and +disgusting features of his harpies to describe, and more frequent +failures in the attempt to describe them. + +[16] London, J. Dodsley, 1792, 3 vols. 4to.--Vol. II. pp. 324-336, in +the present edition. + +[17] See the history of the melancholy catastrophe of the Duke of +Buckingham. Temp. Hen. VIII. + +[18] At si non aliam venturo fata Neroni, etc. + +[19] Sir George Savile's act, called The _Nullum Tempus_ Act. + +[20] "Templum in modum arcis."--TACITUS, of the temple of Jerusalem. + +[21] There is nothing on which the leaders of the Republic one and +indivisible value themselves more than on the chemical operations by +which; through science, they convert the pride of aristocracy to an +instrument of its own destruction,--on the operations by which they +reduce the magnificent ancient country-seats of the nobility, decorated +with the _feudal_ titles of Duke, Marquis, or Earl, into magazines of +what they call _revolutionary_ gunpowder. They tell us, that hitherto +things "had not yet been properly and in a _revolutionary_ manner +explored,"--"The strong _chateaus_, those _feudal_ fortresses, that +_were ordered to be demolished_ attracted next the attention of your +committee. _Nature_ there had _secretly_ regained her _rights_, and had +produced saltpetre, for the _purpose_, as it should seem, _of +facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of +destruction_. From these _ruins_, which _still frown_ on the liberties +of the Republic, we have extracted the means of producing good; and +those piles which have hitherto glutted the _pride of despots_, and +covered the plots of La Vendée, will soon furnish wherewithal to tame +the traitors and to overwhelm the disaffected,"--"The _rebellious +cities_, also, have afforded a large quantity of saltpetre. _Commune +Affranchie_" (that is, the noble city of Lyons, reduced in many parts to +an heap of ruins) "and Toulon will pay a _second_ tribute to our +artillery."--_Report, 1st February_, 1794. + + + + +THREE LETTERS + +ADDRESSED TO + +A MEMBER OF THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT, + +ON THE + +PROPOSALS FOR PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE. + +1796-7. + + + + +LETTER I. + +ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE. + + +My Dear Sir,--Our last conversation, though not in the tone of absolute +despondency, was far from cheerful. We could not easily account for some +unpleasant appearances. They were represented to us as indicating the +state of the popular mind; and they were not at all what we should have +expected from our old ideas even of the faults and vices of the English +character. The disastrous events which have followed one upon another in +a long, unbroken, funereal train, moving in a procession that seemed to +have no end,--these were not the principal causes of our dejection. We +feared more from what threatened to fail within than what menaced to +oppress us from abroad. To a people who have once been proud and great, +and great because they were proud, a change in the national spirit is +the most terrible of all revolutions. + +I shall not live to behold the unravelling of the intricate plot which +saddens and perplexes the awful drama of Providence now acting on the +moral theatre of the world. Whether for thought or for action, I am at +the end of my career. You are in the middle of yours. In what part of +its orbit the nation with which we are carried along moves at this +instant it is not easy to conjecture. It may, perhaps, be far advanced +in its aphelion,--but when to return? + +Not to lose ourselves in the infinite void of the conjectural world, our +business is with what is likely to be affected, for the better or the +worse, by the wisdom or weakness of our plans. In all speculations upon +men and human affairs, it is of no small moment to distinguish things of +accident from permanent causes, and from effects that cannot be altered. +It is not every irregularity in our movement that is a total deviation +from our course. I am not quite of the mind of those speculators who +seem assured that necessarily, and by the constitution of things, all +states have the same periods of infancy, manhood, and decrepitude that +are found in the individuals who compose them. Parallels of this sort +rather furnish similitudes to illustrate or to adorn than supply +analogies from whence to reason. The objects which are attempted to be +forced into an analogy are not found in the same classes of existence. +Individuals are physical beings, subject to laws universal and +invariable. The immediate cause acting in these laws may be obscure: the +general results are subjects of certain calculation. But commonwealths +are not physical, but moral essences. They are artificial combinations, +and, in their proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of +the human mind. We are not yet acquainted with the laws which +necessarily influence the stability of that kind of work made by that +kind of agent. There is not in the physical order (with which they do +not appear to hold any assignable connection) a distinct cause by which +any of those fabrics must necessarily grow, flourish, or decay; nor, in +my opinion, does the moral world produce anything more determinate on +that subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal, indeed, and +ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt +whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be +so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which +necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying the +operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain, and much +more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes +that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community. + +It is often impossible, in these political inquiries, to find any +proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign +and their known operation. We are therefore obliged to deliver up that +operation to mere chance, or, more piously, (perhaps more rationally,) +to the occasional interposition and irresistible hand of the Great +Disposer. We have seen states of considerable duration, which for ages +have remained nearly as they have begun, and could hardly be said to ebb +or flow. Some appear to have spent their vigor at their commencement. +Some have blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. +The meridian of some has been the most splendid. Others, and they the +greatest number, have fluctuated, and experienced at different periods +of their existence a great variety of fortune. At the very moment when +some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace and +disaster, they have suddenly emerged. They have begun a new course and +opened a new reckoning, and even in the depths of their calamity and on +the very ruins of their country have laid the foundations of a towering +and durable greatness. All this has happened without any apparent +previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on their +distress. The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his +retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a whole +nation. A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn, have +changed the face of fortune, and almost of Nature. + +Such, and often influenced by such causes, has commonly been the fate of +monarchies of long duration. They have their ebbs and their flows. This +has been eminently the fate of the monarchy of France. There have been +times in which no power has ever been brought so low. Few have ever +flourished in greater glory. By turns elevated and depressed, that power +had been, on the whole, rather on the increase; and it continued not +only powerful, but formidable, to the hour of the total ruin of the +monarchy. This fall of the monarchy was far from being preceded by any +exterior symptoms of decline. The interior were not visible to every +eye; and a thousand accidents might have prevented the operation of what +the most clear-sighted were not able to discern nor the most provident +to divine. A very little time before its dreadful catastrophe, there was +a kind of exterior splendor in the situation of the crown, which usually +adds to government strength and authority at home. The crown seemed then +to have obtained some of the most splendid objects of state ambition. +None of the Continental powers of Europe were the enemies of France. +They were all either tacitly disposed to her or publicly connected with +her; and in those who kept the most aloof there was little appearance of +jealousy,--of animosity there was no appearance at all. The British +nation, her great preponderating rival, she had humbled, to all +appearance she had weakened, certainly had endangered, by cutting off a +very large and by far the most growing part of her empire. In that its +acme of human prosperity and greatness, in the high and palmy state of +the monarchy of France, it fell to the ground without a struggle. It +fell without any of those vices in the monarch which have sometimes been +the causes of the fall of kingdoms, but which existed, without any +visible effect on the state, in the highest degree in many other +princes, and, far from destroying their power, had only left some slight +stains on their character. The financial difficulties were only pretexts +and instruments of those who accomplished the ruin of that monarchy; +they were not the causes of it. + +Deprived of the old government, deprived in a manner of all government, +France, fallen as a monarchy, to common speculators might have appeared +more likely to be an object of pity or insult, according to the +disposition of the circumjacent powers, than to be the scourge and +terror of them all: but out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in +France has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more +terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination +and subdued the fortitude of man. Going straight forward to its end, +unappalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all common maxims +and all common means, that hideous phantom overpowered those who could +not believe it was possible she could at all exist, except on the +principles which habit rather than Nature had persuaded them were +necessary to their own particular welfare and to their own ordinary +modes of action. But the constitution of any political being, as well as +that of any physical being, ought to be known, before one can venture to +say what is fit for its conservation, or what is the proper means of its +power. The poison of other states is the food of the new Republic. That +bankruptcy, the very apprehension of which is one of the causes assigned +for the fall of the monarchy, was the capital on which she opened her +traffic with the world. + +The Republic of Regicide, with an annihilated revenue, with defaced +manufactures, with a ruined commerce, with an uncultivated and +half-depopulated country, with a discontented, distressed, enslaved, and +famished people, passing, with a rapid, eccentric, incalculable course, +from the wildest anarchy to the sternest despotism, has actually +conquered the finest parts of Europe, has distressed, disunited, +deranged, and broke to pieces all the rest, and so subdued the minds of +the rulers in every nation, that hardly any resource presents itself to +them, except that of entitling themselves to a contemptuous mercy by a +display of their imbecility and meanness. Even in their greatest +military efforts, and the greatest display of their fortitude, they seem +not to hope, they do not even appear to wish, the extinction of what +subsists to their certain ruin. Their ambition is only to be admitted to +a more favored class in the order of servitude under that domineering +power. + +This seems the temper of the day. At first the French force was too much +despised. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconsiderate courage has given +way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that, through the medium of +deliberate, sober apprehension, we may arrive at steady fortitude. Who +knows whether indignation may not succeed to terror, and the revival of +high sentiment, spurning away the delusion of a safety purchased at the +expense of glory, may not yet drive us to that generous despair which +has often subdued distempers in the state for which no remedy could be +found in the wisest councils? + +Other great states having been without any regular, certain course of +elevation or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may fluctuate +also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune, +may have its changes. We are therefore never authorized to abandon our +country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. There +is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that +no others can spring up. Whilst our heart is whole, it will find means, +or make them. The heart of the citizen is a perennial spring of energy +to the state. Because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume +that it will cease instantly to beat. The public must never be regarded +as incurable. I remember, in the beginning of what has lately been +called the Seven Years' War, that an eloquent writer and ingenious +speculator, Dr. Brown, upon some reverses which happened in the +beginning of that war, published an elaborate philosophical discourse to +prove that the distinguishing features of the people of England had been +totally changed, and that a frivolous effeminacy was become the national +character. Nothing could be more popular than that work. It was thought +a great consolation to us, the light people of this country, (who were +and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate,) that we had +found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not +be more pleased with his leading discovery. But whilst, in that +splenetic mood, we amused ourselves in a sour, critical speculation, of +which we were ourselves the objects, and in which every man lost his +particular sense of the public disgrace in the epidemic nature of the +distemper,--whilst, as in the Alps, goitre kept goitre in +countenance,--whilst we were thus abandoning ourselves to a direct +confession of our inferiority to France, and whilst many, very many, +were ready to act upon a sense of that inferiority,--a few months +effected a total change in our variable minds. We emerged from the gulf +of that speculative despondency, and wore buoyed up to the highest point +of practical vigor. Never did the masculine spirit of England display +itself with more energy, nor ever did its genius soar with a prouder +preëminence over France, than at the time when frivolity and effeminacy +had been at least tacitly acknowledged as their national character by +the good people of this kingdom. + +For one, (if they be properly treated,) I despair neither of the public +fortune nor of the public mind. There is much to be done, undoubtedly, +and much to be retrieved. We must walk in new ways, or we can never +encounter our enemy in his devious march. We are not at an end of our +struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive ourselves: we are at the +beginning of great troubles. I readily acknowledge that the state of +public affairs is infinitely more unpromising than at the period I have +just now alluded to; and the position of all the powers of Europe, in +relation to us, and in relation to each other, is more intricate and +critical beyond all comparison. Difficult indeed is our situation. In +all situations of difficulty, men will be influenced in the part they +take, not only by the reason of the case, but by the peculiar turn of +their own character. The same ways to safety do not present themselves +to all men, nor to the same men in different tempers. There is a +courageous wisdom: there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result, +not of caution, but of fear. Under misfortunes, it often happens that +the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of +the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future +danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so +much as fully seen. The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. An +abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant admiration of the enemy, +present us with no hope but in a compromise with his pride by a +submission to his will. This short plan of policy is the only counsel +which will obtain a hearing. We plunge into a dark gulf with all the +rash precipitation of fear. The nature of courage is, without a +question, to be conversant with danger: but in the palpable night of +their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is the +danger which by a sure instinct calls out the courage to resist it, but +that it is the courage which produces the danger. They therefore seek +for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a +temporizing meanness as the only source of safety. + +The rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact, never +universal. I do not deny, that, in small, truckling states, a timely +compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means; of +drawling out their puny existence; but a great state is too much +envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, +it must be respected. Power and eminence and consideration are things +not to be begged; they must be commanded: and they who supplicate for +mercy from others can never hope for justice through themselves. What +justice they are to obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his +character; and that they ought well to know before they implicitly +confide. + +Much controversy there has been in Parliament, and not a little amongst +us out of doors, about the instrumental means of this nation towards the +maintenance of her dignity and the assertion of her rights. On the most +elaborate and correct detail of facts, the result seems to be, that at +no time has the wealth and power of Great Britain been so considerable +as it is at this very perilous moment. We have a, vast interest to +preserve, and we possess great means of preserving it: but it is to be +remembered that the artificer may be incumbered by his tools, and that +resources may be among impediments. If wealth is the obedient and +laborious slave of virtue and of public honor, then wealth is in its +place and has its use; but if this order is changed, and honor is to be +sacrificed to the conservation of riches, riches, which have neither +eyes nor hands, nor anything truly vital in them, cannot long survive +the being of their vivifying powers, their legitimate masters, and their +potent protectors. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free: +if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. We are bought by the +enemy with the treasure from our own coffers. Too great a sense of the +value of a subordinate interest may be the very source of its danger, as +well as the certain ruin of interests of a superior order. Often has a +man lost his all because he would not submit to hazard all in defending +it. A display of our wealth before robbers is not the way to restrain +their boldness or to lessen their rapacity. This display is made, I +know, to persuade the people of England that thereby we shall awe the +enemy and improve the terms of our capitulation: it is made, not that we +should fight with more animation, but that we should supplicate with +better hopes. We are mistaken. We have an enemy to deal with who never +regarded our contest as a measuring and weighing of purses. He is the +Gaul that puts his _sword_ into the scale. He is more tempted with our +wealth as booty than terrified with it as power. But let us be rich or +poor, let us be either in what proportion we may, Nature is false or +this is true, that, where the essential public force (of which money is +but a part) is in any degree upon a par in a conflict between nations, +that state which is resolved to hazard its existence rather than to +abandon its objects must have an infinite advantage over that which is +resolved to yield rather than to carry its resistance beyond a certain +point. Humanly speaking, that people which bounds its efforts only with +its being must give the law to that nation which will not push its +opposition beyond its convenience. + +If we look to nothing but our domestic condition, the state of the +nation is full even to plethora; but if we imagine that this country can +long maintain its blood and its food as disjoined from the community of +mankind, such an opinion does not deserve refutation as absurd, but pity +as insane. + +I do not know that such an improvident and stupid selfishness deserves +the discussion which perhaps I may bestow upon it hereafter. We cannot +arrange with our enemy, in the present conjuncture, without abandoning +the interest of mankind. If we look only to our own petty _peculium_ in +the war, we have had some advantages,--advantages ambiguous in their +nature, and dearly bought. We have not in the slightest degree impaired +the strength of the common enemy in any one of those points in which his +particular force consists,--at the same time that new enemies to +ourselves, new allies to the Regicide Republic, have been made out of +the wrecks and fragments of the general confederacy. So far as to the +selfish part. As composing a part of the community of Europe, and +interested in its fate, it is not easy to conceive a state of things +more doubtful and perplexing. When Louis the Fourteenth had made himself +master of one of the largest and most important provinces of +Spain,--when he had in a manner overrun Lombardy, and was thundering at +the gates of Turin,--when he had mastered almost all Germany on this +side the Rhine,--when he was on the point of ruining the august fabric +of the Empire,--when, with the Elector of Bavaria in his alliance, +hardly anything interposed between him and Vienna,--when the Turk hung +with a mighty force over the Empire on the other side,--I do not know +that in the beginning of 1704 (that is, in the third year of the +renovated war with Louis the Fourteenth) the state of Europe was so +truly alarming. To England it certainly was not. Holland (and Holland is +a matter to England of value inestimable) was then powerful, was then +independent, and, though greatly endangered, was then full of energy and +spirit. But the great resource of Europe was in England: not in a sort +of England detached from the rest of the world, and amusing herself +with the puppet-show of a naval power, (it can be no better, whilst all +the sources of that power, and of every sort of power, are precarious,) +but in that sort of England who considered herself as embodied with +Europe, but in that sort of England who, sympathetic with the adversity +or the happiness of mankind, felt that nothing in human affairs was +foreign to her. We may consider it as a sure axiom, that, as, on the one +hand, no confederacy of the least effect or duration can exist against +France, of which England is not only a part, but the head, so neither +can England pretend to cope with France but as connected with the body +of Christendom. + +Our account of the war, _as a war of communion_, to the very point in +which we began to throw out lures, oglings, and glances for peace, was a +war of disaster, and of little else. The independent advantages obtained +by us at the beginning of the war, and which were made at the expense of +that common cause, if they deceive us about our largest and our surest +interest, are to be reckoned amongst our heaviest losses. + +The Allies, and Great Britain amongst the rest, (and perhaps amongst the +foremost,) have been miserably deluded by this great, fundamental error: +that it was in our power to make peace with this monster of a state, +whenever we chose to forget the crimes that made it great and the +designs that made it formidable. People imagined that their ceasing to +resist was the sure way to be secure. This "pale cast of thought" +sicklied over all their enterprises, and turned all their politics awry. +They could not, or rather they would not, read, in the most unequivocal +declarations of the enemy, and in his uniform conduct, that more safety +was to be found in the most arduous war than in the friendship of that +kind of being. Its hostile amity can be obtained on no terms that do not +imply an inability hereafter to resist its designs. This great, prolific +error (I mean that peace was always in our power) has been the cause +that rendered the Allies indifferent about the _direction_ of the war, +and persuaded them that they might always risk a choice and even a +change in its objects. They seldom improved any advantage,--hoping that +the enemy, affected by it, would make a proffer of peace. Hence it was +that all their early victories have been followed almost immediately +with the usual effects of a defeat, whilst all the advantages obtained +by the Regicides have been followed by the consequences that were +natural. The discomfitures which the Republic of Assassins has suffered +have uniformly called forth new exertions, which not only repaired old +losses, but prepared new conquests. The losses of the Allies, on the +contrary, (no provision having been made on the speculation of such an +event,) have been followed by desertion, by dismay, by disunion, by a +dereliction of their policy, by a flight from their principles, by an +admiration of the enemy, by mutual accusations, by a distrust in every +member of the Alliance of its fellow, of its cause, its power, and its +courage. + +Great difficulties in consequence of our erroneous policy, as I have +said, press upon every side of us. Far from desiring to conceal or even +to palliate the evil in the representation, I wish to lay it down as my +foundation, that never greater existed. In a moment when sudden panic is +apprehended, it may be wise for a while to conceal some great public +disaster, or to reveal it by degrees, until the minds of the people have +time to be re-collected, that their understanding may have leisure to +rally, and that more steady councils may prevent their doing something +desperate under the first impressions of rage or terror. But with regard +to a _general_ state of things, growing out of events and causes already +known in the gross, there is no piety in the fraud that covers its true +nature; because nothing but erroneous resolutions can be the result of +false representations. Those measures, which in common distress might be +available, in greater are no better than playing with the evil. That the +effort may bear a proportion to the exigence, it is fit it should be +known,--known in its quality, in its extent, and in all the +circumstances which attend it. Great reverses of fortune there have +been, and great embarrassments in council: a principled regicide enemy +possessed of the most important part of Europe, and struggling for the +rest; within ourselves a total relaxation of all authority, whilst a cry +is raised against it, as if it were the most ferocious of all despotism. +A worse phenomenon: our government disowned by the most efficient member +of its tribunals,--ill-supported by any of their constituent parts,--and +the highest tribunal of all (from causes not for our present purpose to +examine) deprived of all that dignity and all that efficiency which +might enforce, or regulate, or, if the case required it, might supply +the want of every other court. Public prosecutions are become little +better than schools for treason,--of no use but to improve the dexterity +of criminals in the mystery of evasion, or to show with what complete +impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth, with what safety +assassins may attempt its awful head. Everything is secure, except what +the laws have made sacred; everything is tameness and languor that is +not fury and faction. Whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre +prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the body +of the state, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by the very +aspect of the disease.[22] The doctor of the Constitution, pretending to +underrate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own +operation. He doubts and questions the salutary, but critical, terrors +of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit even from his +defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity. He praises the +moderation of the laws, as in his hands he sees them baffled and +despised. Is all this because in our day the statutes of the kingdom are +not engrossed in as firm a character and imprinted in as black and +legible a type as ever? No! the law is a clear, but it is a dead letter. +Dead and putrid, it is insufficient to save the state, but potent to +infect and to kill. Living law, full of reason, and of equity and +justice, (as it is, or it should not exist,) ought to be severe, and +awful too,--or the words of menace, whether written on the parchment +roll of England or cut into the brazen tablet of Borne, will excite +nothing but contempt. How comes it that in all the state prosecutions of +magnitude, from the Revolution to within these two or three years, the +crown has scarcely ever retired disgraced and defeated from its courts? +Whence this alarming change? By a connection easily felt, and not +impossible to be traced to its cause, all the parts of the state have +their correspondence and consent. They who bow to the enemy abroad will +not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home. It is impossible not +to observe, that, in proportion as we approximate to the poisonous jaws +of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. In proportion as we are +attracted towards the focus of illegality, irreligion, and desperate +enterprise, all the venomous and blighting insects of the state are +awakened into life. The promise of the year is blasted and shrivelled +and burned up before them. Our most salutary and most beautiful +institutions yield nothing but dust and smut; the harvest of our law is +no more than stubble. It is in the nature of these eruptive diseases in +the state to sink in by fits and reappear. But the fuel of the malady +remains, and in my opinion is not in the smallest degree mitigated in +its malignity, though it waits the favorable moment of a freer +communication with the source of regicide to exert and to increase its +force. + +Is it that the people are changed, that the commonwealth cannot be +protected by its laws? I hardly think it. On the contrary, I conceive +that these things happen because men are not changed, but remain always +what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us ever must be, +when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide, leader, or +control: that is, made to be full of a blind elevation in prosperity; to +despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with unexpected reverses; to +find no clew in a labyrinth of difficulties; to get out of a present +inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to +fortune; to admire successful, though wicked enterprise, and to imitate +what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from +sacrilege and regicide whilst they are only in their infancy and their +struggle, but which finds nothing that can alarm in their adult state, +and in the power and triumph of those destructive principles. In a mass +we cannot be left to ourselves. We must have leaders. If none will +undertake to lead us right, we shall find guides who will contrive to +conduct us to shame and ruin. + +We are in a war of a _peculiar_ nature. It is not with an ordinary +community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may +veer about,--not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and +abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system which by its +essence is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or +war as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with +an _armed doctrine_ that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a +faction of opinion and of interest and of enthusiasm in every country. +To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our Channel. It has one foot on a +foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it +can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so completely +ruin any of the old governments, ours in particular, as the +acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority +in this new power. This acknowledgment we make, if, in a bad or doubtful +situation of our affairs, we solicit peace, or if we yield to the modes +of new humiliation in which alone she is content to give us an hearing. +By that means the terms cannot be of our choosing,--no, not in any part. + +It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things,--None can aspire +to act greatly but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who +make their arrangements in the first run of misadventure, and in a +temper of mind the common fruit of disappointment and dismay, put a seal +on their calamities. To their power they take a security against any +favors which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of fortune. I am +therefore, my dear friend, invariably of your opinion, (though full of +respect for those who think differently,) that neither the time chosen +for it, nor the manner of soliciting a negotiation, were properly +considered,--even though I had allowed (I hardly shall allow) that with +the horde of Regicides we could by any selection of time or use of means +obtain anything at all deserving the name of peace. + +In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances with +scorn. We have an enemy to whose virtues we can owe nothing, but on this +occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to +his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the +proud repel us has this of good in it,--that, in making us keep our +distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the +pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our +reason to operate, and for British dignity to recover from its surprise. +From first to last he has rejected all our advances. Far as we have +gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat. + +There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be +from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may +gather something from the time in which the first overtures are made, +from the quarter whence they come, from the manner in which they are +received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy +offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied +with something. It shows that there are limits to his ambition or his +resentment. If he offers nothing under misfortune, it is probable that +it is more painful to him to abandon the prospect of advantage than to +endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a +nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the +war threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident that he wishes +nothing more than to disarm his adversary to gain time. Afterwards a +question arises, Which of the parties is likely to obtain the greater +advantages by continuing disarmed and by the use of time? + +With these few plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper +to reconsider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from the +day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering this +part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose, +for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a Republic, is +a politic person, with whom something deserving the name of peace may be +made. On that supposition, let us examine our own proceeding. Let us +compute the profit it has brought, and the advantage that it is likely +to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought is not always the sooner +obtained. The discovery of vehement wishes generally frustrates their +attainment, and your adversary has gained a great advantage over you +when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in reserve +not only something of dignity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort +of courage belongs to negotiation, as well as to operations of the +field. A negotiator must often seem willing to hazard the whole issue +of his treaty, if he wishes to secure any one material point. + +The Regicides were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for +peace. In proportion to the humility and perseverance we have shown in +our addresses has been the obstinacy of their arrogance in rejecting our +suit. The patience of their pride seems to have been worn out with the +importunity of our courtship. Disgusted as they are with a conduct so +different from all the sentiments by which they are themselves filled, +they think to put an end to our vexatious solicitation by redoubling +their insults. + +It happens frequently that pride may reject a public advance, while +interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity +has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of +humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand,[23] of which, from the +motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed. +Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is its very character to +submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and +humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a +race; but it belongs to the family of fortitude. In the spirit of that +benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Regicide +not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial +murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of +the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been +an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the +declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the +service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend. +The very system and constitution of government that now prevails was +settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection +of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile +invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a shore +more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most +pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for +the miseries of war, and to open some sort of conversation, which, +(after our public overtures had glutted their pride,) at a cautious and +jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation.--What +was the event? A strange, uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the +opera, his head shaded with three-colored plumes, his body fantastically +habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in +the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who +came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with +directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him +to be sent from Paris in two hours. + +Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tenderness should not strike +athwart the sternness of politics, and make us recall to painful memory +the difference between this insolent and bloody theatre and the +temperate, natural majesty of a civilized court, where the afflicted +family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in +rank and the most compassionate of the compassionate sex. + +In this intercourse, at least, there was nothing to promise a great deal +of success in our future advances. Whilst the fortune of the field was +wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow where it +led: and it led to everything. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws +were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician in their +clan[24] was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to +their claims as to mark what for the present they are content to leave +to others. They made, not laws, not conventions, not late possession, +but physical Nature and political convenience the sole foundation of +their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the ocean were the +bounds which, for the time, they assigned to the Empire of Regicide. +What was the Chamber of Union of Louis the Fourteenth, which astonished +and provoked all Europe, compared to this declaration? In truth, with +these limits, and their principle, they would not have left even the +shadow of liberty or safety to any nation. This plan of empire was not +taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. You must +recollect that it was projected, just as the report has stated it, from +the very first revolt of the faction against their monarchy; and it has +been uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national policy, from +that time to this. It is generally in the season of prosperity that men +discover their real temper, principles, and designs. But this principle, +suggested in their first struggles, fully avowed in their prosperity, +has, in the most adverse state of their affairs, been tenaciously +adhered to. The report, combined with their conduct, forms an infallible +criterion of the views of this republic. + +In their fortune there has been some fluctuation. We are to see how +their minds have been affected with a change. Some impression it made on +them, undoubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the submissions +that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they did was to make +some of those cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace which +no power has ever refused to make, because they mean little and cost +nothing. The first paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburg) making +a show of that pacific disposition discovered a rooted animosity against +this nation, and an incurable rancor, even more than any one of their +hostile acts. In this Hamburg declaration they choose to suppose that +the war, on the part of England, _is a war of government, begun and +carried on against the sense and interests of the people_,--thus sowing +in their very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition: +for they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in +war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old, steady +maxim of separating the people from their government. Let me add, (and +it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of ministers +that I do add,) if our government perseveres in its as uniform course of +acting under instruments with such preambles, it pleads guilty to the +charges made by our enemies against it, both on its own part and on the +part of Parliament itself. The enemy must succeed in his plan for +loosening and disconnecting all the internal holdings of the kingdom. + +It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the +session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this +coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its +effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides produced a +direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses +of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not +be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered +still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them +by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an +obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of +the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and +taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their +gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our +advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under "evasive +formalities and frivolous pretexts." What these pretexts and evasions +were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest +there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in +the mass, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their +language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our +proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they +will offer peace "on conditions _as_ moderate"--as what? as reason and +as equity require? No,--as moderate "as are suitable to their _national +dignity_." National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important +consideration: they have given us an useful hint on that subject: but +dignity hitherto has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the +matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard +for rating the conditions of peace,--no, never by the most violent of +conquerors. Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no +standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition +may think fit for their _dignity_. But lest any doubt should remain on +what they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph +tell us "that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they +have reduced them to a state which will put them under an +_impossibility_ of pursuing their wretched projects,"--that is, in plain +French or English, until they have accomplished our utter and +irretrievable ruin. This is their _pacific_ language. It flows from +their unalterable principle, in whatever language they speak or whatever +steps they take, whether of real war or of pretended pacification. They +have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their +intentions. We were as obstinately resolved to think them not in +earnest: but I confess, jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may +be, are not much to my taste. + +To this conciliatory and amicable public communication our sole answer, +in effect, is this:--"Citizen Regicides! whenever _you_ find yourselves +in the humor, you may have a peace with _us_. That is a point you may +always command. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do +shall hinder us from the renewal of our supplications. You may turn us +out at the door, but we will jump in at the window." + +To those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I +do not know a more mortifying spectacle than to see the assembled +majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the +antechamber of Regicide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary +tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood +of his sovereign. Then, when, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall +have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what monarch he shall +next glut his ravening maw, he may condescend to signify that it is his +pleasure to be awake, and that he is at leisure to receive the proposals +of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the +execution of the sentence he has passed upon them. At the opening of +those doors, what a sight it must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of +royal impotence, in the precedency which they will intrigue to obtain, +and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their +degradation, sneaking into the Regicide presence, and, with the relics +of the smile which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters +still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of +their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of +a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring +them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his +guillotine! These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as +they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal +and faithful subjects, or with any true affection to their master, or +true attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country? +There is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this Trophonian +cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators, and such will +continue as long as they live. They will become true conductors of +contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to +the source of that electricity. At best, they will become totally +indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. This +species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those +who have been much employed in foreign courts, but in the present case +the evil must be aggravated without measure: for they go from their +country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the +lowest degradation; and what must happen in their place of residence can +have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity or of chaste +self-estimation, either as men or as representatives of crowned heads. + +Our early proceeding, which has produced these returns of affront, +appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new +circumstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and +messages in former times. I find nothing like these. You will look in +the journals to find whether my memory fails me. Before this time, never +was a ground of peace laid, (as it were, in a Parliamentary record,) +until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise homage paid to +the discretion of the crown. It was known how much a negotiation must +suffer by having anything in the train towards it prematurely disclosed. +But when those Parliamentary declarations were made, not so much as a +step had been taken towards a negotiation in any mode whatever. The +measure was an unpleasant and unseasonable discovery. + +I conceive that another circumstance in that transaction has been as +little authorized by any example, and that it is as little prudent in +itself: I mean the formal recognition of the French Republic. Without +entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested +in that measure, or on its general policy, I doubt, upon mere temporary +considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly advisable. It is +not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of +a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your +recognition will secure his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure worse +than thrown away. It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently +to the demands, of the adverse party. He has gained a fundamental point +without an equivalent. It has happened as might have been foreseen. No +notice whatever was taken of this recognition. In fact, the Directory +never gave themselves any concern about it; and they received our +acknowledgment with perfect scorn. With them it is not for the states of +Europe to judge of their title: the very reverse. In their eye the title +of every other power depends wholly on their pleasure. + +Preliminary declarations of this sort, thrown out at random, and sown, +as it wore, broadcast, were never to be found in the mode of our +proceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great monarchies of France +and Spain existed. I do not say that a diplomatic measure ought to be, +like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to strict +precedent: I hope I am far from that pedantry. But this I know: that a +great state ought to have some regard to its ancient maxims, especially +where they indicate its dignity, where they concur with the rules of +prudence, and, above all, where the circumstances of the time require +that a spirit of innovation should be resisted which leads to the +humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to assert that +those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit that +the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all other +considerations; but if there was a rule, that a sovereign never should +let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity +of kings would be held high enough. At present, however, fashion governs +in more serious things than furniture and dress. It looks as if +sovereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their estimation. It +seems as if the preëminence of regicide was acknowledged,--and that +kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as +natural magistrates and judges over them. It appears as if dignity were +the prerogative of crime, and a temporizing humiliation the proper part +for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the +most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their +place above kings. This example in foreign princes I trust will not +spread. It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order +should not, be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only title +to preëminence and honor. + +At this second stage of humiliation, (I mean the insulting declaration +in consequence of the message to both Houses of Parliament,) it might +not have been amiss to pause, and not to squander away the fund of our +submissions, until we knew what final purposes of public interest they +might answer. The policy of subjecting ourselves to further insults is +not to me quite apparent. It was resolved, however, to hazard a third +trial. Citizen Barthélemy had been established, on the part of the new +republic, at Basle,--where, with his proconsulate of Switzerland and the +adjacent parts of Germany, he was appointed as a sort of factor to deal +in the degradation of the crowned heads of Europe. At Basle it was +thought proper, in order to keep others, I suppose, in countenance, that +Great Britain should appear at this market, and bid with the rest for +the mercy of the People-King. + +On the 6th of March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, in consequence of authority, was +desired to sound France on her disposition towards a general +pacification,--to know whether she would consent to send ministers to a +congress at such a place as might be hereafter agreed upon,--whether +there would be a disposition to communicate the general grounds of a +pacification, such as France (the diplomatic name of the Regicide power) +would be willing to propose, as a foundation for a negotiation for peace +with his Majesty _and his allies_, or to suggest any other way of +arriving at the same end of a general pacification: but he had no +authority to enter into any negotiation or discussion with Citizen +Barthélemy upon these subjects. + +On the part of Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly +uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least +strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of men +but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such advances. They +could not, however, begin their answer, which was given without much +delay, and communicated on the 28th of the same month, without a +preamble of insult and reproach. "They doubt the sincerity of the +pacific intentions of this court." She did not begin, say they, yet to +"know her real interests." "She did not seek peace _with good faith_." +This, or something to this effect, has been the constant preliminary +observation (now grown into a sort of office form) on all our overtures +to this power: a perpetual charge on the British government of fraud, +evasion, and habitual perfidy. + +It might be asked, From whence did these opinions of our insincerity and +ill faith arise? It was because the British ministry (leaving to the +Directory, however, to propose a better mode) proposed a _congress_ for +the purpose of a general pacification, and this they said "would render +negotiation endless." From hence they immediately inferred a fraudulent +intention in the offer. Unquestionably their mode of giving the law +would bring matters to a more speedy conclusion. As to any other method +more agreeable to them than a congress, an alternative expressly +proposed to them, they did not condescend to signify their pleasure. + +This refusal of treating conjointly with the powers allied against this +republic furnishes matter for a great deal of serious reflection. They +have hitherto constantly declined any other than a treaty with a single +power. By thus dissociating every state from every other, like deer +separated from the herd, each power is treated with on the merit of his +being a deserter from the common cause. In that light, the Regicide +power, finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with great +facility gives the law to them all. By this system, for the present an +incurable distrust is sown amongst confederates, and in future all +alliance is rendered impracticable. It is thus they have treated with +Prussia, with Spain, with Sardinia, with Bavaria, with the +Ecclesiastical State, with Saxony; and here we see them refuse to treat +with Great Britain in any other mode. They must be worse than blind who +do not see with what undeviating regularity of system, in this case and +in all cases, they pursue their scheme for the utter destruction of +every independent power,--especially the smaller, who cannot find any +refuge whatever but in some common cause. + +Renewing their taunts and reflections, they tell Mr. Wickham, "that +_their_ policy has no guides but openness and good faith, and that their +conduct shall be conformable to these principles." They say concerning +their government, that, "yielding to the ardent desire by which it is +animated to procure peace for the French Republic and for all nations, +it will not _fear to declare itself openly_. Charged by the Constitution +with the execution of the _laws_, it cannot _make_ or _listen_ to any +proposal that would be contrary to them. The constitutional act does not +permit it to consent to any alienation of that which, according to the +existing laws, constitutes the territory of the Republic." + +"With respect to the countries _occupied by the French armies, and which +have not been united to France_, they, as well as other interests, +political and commercial, may become the subject of a negotiation, which +will present to the Directory the means of proving how much it desires +to attain speedily to a happy pacification." That "the Directory is +ready to receive, in this respect, any overtures that shall be just, +reasonable, and compatible _with the dignity of the Republic_." + +On the head of what is _not_ to be the subject of negotiation, the +Directory is clear and open. As to what may be a matter of treaty, all +this open dealing is gone. She retires into her shell. There she expects +overtures from _you_: and you are to guess what she shall judge just, +reasonable, and, above all, _compatible with her dignity_. + +In the records of pride there does not exist so insulting a declaration. +It is insolent in words, in manner; but in substance it is not only +insulting, but alarming. It is a specimen of what may be expected from +the masters we are preparing for our humbled country. Their openness and +candor consist in a direct avowal of their despotism and ambition. We +know that their declared resolution had been to surrender no object +belonging to France previous to the war. They had resolved that the +Republic was entire, and must remain so. As to what she has conquered +from the Allies and united to the same indivisible body, it is of the +same nature. That is, the Allies are to give up whatever conquests they +have made or may make upon France; but all which she has violently +ravished from her neighbors, and thought fit to appropriate, are not to +become so much as objects of negotiation. + +In this unity and indivisibility of possession are sunk ten immense and +wealthy provinces, full of strong, flourishing, and opulent cities, (the +Austrian Netherlands,) the part of Europe the most necessary to preserve +any communication between this kingdom and its natural allies, next to +Holland the most interesting to this country, and without which Holland +must virtually belong to France. Savoy and Nice, the keys of Italy, and +the citadel in her hands to bridle Switzerland, are in that +consolidation. The important territory of Liege is torn out of the heart +of the Empire. All these are integrant parts of the Republic, not to be +subject to any discussion, or to be purchased by any equivalent. Why? +Because there is a law which prevents it. What law? The law of nations? +The acknowledged public law of Europe? Treaties and conventions of +parties? No,--not a pretence of the kind. It is a declaration not made +in consequence of any prescription on her side,--not on any cession or +dereliction, actual or tacit, of other powers. It is a declaration, +_pendente lite_, in the middle of a war, one principal object of which +was originally the defence, and has since been the recovery, of these +very countries. + +This strange law is not made for a trivial object, not for a single port +or for a single fortress, but for a great kingdom,--for the religion, +the morals, the laws, the liberties, the lives and fortunes of millions +of human creatures, who, without their consent or that of their lawful +government, are, by an arbitrary act of this regicide and homicide +government which they call a law, incorporated into their tyranny. + +In other words, their will is the law, not only at home, but as to the +concerns of every nation. Who has made that law but the Regicide +Republic itself, whose laws, like those of the Medes and Persians, they +cannot alter or abrogate, or even so much as take into consideration? +Without the least ceremony or compliment, they have sent out of the +world whole sets of laws and lawgivers. They have swept away the very +constitutions under which the legislatures acted and the laws were made. +Even the fundamental sacred rights of man they have not scrupled to +profane. They have set this holy code at nought with ignominy and scorn. +Thus they treat all their domestic laws and constitutions, and even what +they had considered as a law of Nature. But whatever they have put their +seal on, for the purposes of their ambition, and the ruin of their +neighbors, this alone is invulnerable, impassible, immortal. Assuming to +be masters of everything human and divine, here, and here alone, it +seems, they are limited, "cooped and cabined in," and this omnipotent +legislature finds itself wholly without the power of exercising its +favorite attribute, the love of peace. In other words, they are powerful +to usurp, impotent to restore; and equally by their power and their +impotence they aggrandize themselves, and weaken and impoverish you and +all other nations. + +Nothing can be more proper or more manly than the state publication, +called a _Note_, on this proceeding, dated Downing Street, the 10th of +April, 1796. Only that it is better expressed, it perfectly agrees with +the opinion I have taken the liberty of submitting to your +consideration. I place it below at full length,[25] as my justification +in thinking that this astonishing paper from the Directory is not only a +direct negative to all treaty, but is a rejection of every principle +upon which treaties could be made. To admit it for a moment were to +erect this power, usurped at home, into a legislature to govern mankind. +It is an authority that on a thousand occasions they have asserted in +claim, and, whenever they are able, exerted in practice. The +dereliction, of this whole scheme of policy became, therefore, an +indispensable previous condition to all renewal of treaty. The remark of +the British Cabinet on this arrogant and tyrannical claim is natural and +unavoidable. Our ministry state, that, "_while these dispositions shall +be persisted in, nothing is left for the king but to prosecute a war +that is just and necessary_." + +It was of course that we should wait until the enemy showed some sort of +disposition on his part to fulfil this condition. It was hoped, indeed, +that our suppliant strains might be suffered to steal into the august +ear in a more propitious season. That season, however, invoked by so +many vows, conjurations, and prayers, did not come. Every declaration of +hostility renovated, and every act pursued with double animosity,--the +overrunning of Lombardy,--the subjugation of Piedmont,--the possession +of its impregnable fortresses,--the seizing on all the neutral states of +Italy,--our expulsion from Leghorn,--instances forever renewed for our +expulsion from Genoa,--Spain rendered subject to them and hostile to +us,--Portugal bent under the yoke,--half the Empire overrun and +ravaged,--were the only signs which this mild Republic thought proper to +manifest of her pacific sentiments. Every demonstration of an implacable +rancor and an untamable pride were the only encouragements we received +to the renewal of our supplications. + +Here, therefore, they and we were fixed. Nothing was left to the British +ministry but "to prosecute a war just and necessary,"--a war equally +just as at the time of our engaging in it,--a war become ten times more +necessary by everything which happened afterwards. This resolution was +soon, however, forgot. It felt the heat of the season and melted away. +New hopes were entertained from supplication. No expectations, indeed, +were then formed from renewing a direct application to the French +Regicides through the agent-general for the humiliation of sovereigns. +At length a step was taken in degradation which even went lower than all +the rest. Deficient in merits of our own, a mediator was to be +sought,--and we looked for that mediator at Berlin! The King of +Prussia's merits in abandoning the general cause might have obtained for +him some sort of influence in favor of those whom he had deserted; but I +have never heard that his Prussian Majesty had lately discovered so +marked an affection for the Court of St. James's, or for the Court of +Vienna, as to excite much hope of his interposing a very powerful +mediation to deliver them from the distresses into which he had brought +them. + +If humiliation is the element in which we live, if it is become not only +our occasional policy, but our habit, no great objection can be made to +the modes in which it may be diversified,--though I confess I cannot be +charmed with the idea of our exposing our lazar sores at the door of +every proud servitor of the French Republic, where the court dogs will +not deign to lick them. We had, if I am not mistaken, a minister at that +court, who might try its temper, and recede and advance as he found +backwardness or encouragement. But to send a gentleman there on no other +errand than this, and with no assurance whatever that he should not +find, what he did find, a repulse, seems to me to go far beyond all the +demands of a humiliation merely politic. I hope it did not arise from a +predilection for that mode of conduct. + +The cup of bitterness was not, however, drained to the dregs. Basle and +Berlin were not sufficient. After so many and so diversified repulses, +we were resolved to make another experiment, and to try another +mediator. Among the unhappy gentlemen in whose persons royalty is +insulted and degraded at the seat of plebeian pride and upstart +insolence, there is a minister from Denmark at Paris. Without any +previous encouragement to that, any more than the other steps, we sent +through, this turnpike to demand a passport for a person who on our part +was to solicit peace in the metropolis, at the footstool of Regicide +itself. It was not to be expected that any one of those degraded beings +could have influence enough to settle any part of the terms in favor of +the candidates for further degradation; besides, such intervention would +be a direct breach in their system, which did not permit one sovereign +power to utter a word in the concerns of his equal.--Another repulse. We +were desired to apply directly in our persons. We submitted, and made +the application. + +It might be thought that here, at length, we had touched the bottom of +humiliation; our lead was brought up covered with mud. But "in the +lowest deep, a lower deep" was to open for us still more profound +abysses of disgrace and shame. However, in we leaped. We came forward in +our own name. The passport, such a passport and safe-conduct as would be +granted to thieves who might come in to betray their accomplices, and no +better, was granted to British supplication. To leave no doubt of its +spirit, as soon as the rumor of this act of condescension could get +abroad, it was formally announced with an explanation from authority, +containing an invective against the ministry of Great Britain, their +habitual frauds, their proverbial _Punic_ perfidy. No such state-paper, +as a preliminary to a negotiation for peace, has ever yet appeared. Very +few declarations of war have ever shown so much and so unqualified +animosity. I place it below,[26] as a diplomatic curiosity, and in +order to be the better understood in the few remarks I have to make upon +a peace which, indeed, defies all description. "None but itself can be +its parallel." + +I pass by all the insolence and contumely of the performance, as it +comes from them. The present question is not, how we are to be affected +with it in regard to our dignity. That is gone. I shall say no more +about it. Light lie the earth on the ashes of English pride! I shall +only observe upon it _politically_, and as furnishing a direction for +our own conduct in this low business. + +The very idea of a negotiation for peace, whatever the inward sentiments +of the parties may be, implies some confidence in their faith, some +degree of belief in the professions which are made concerning it. A +temporary and occasional credit, at least, is granted. Otherwise men +stumble on the very threshold. I therefore wish to ask what hope we can +have of their good faith, who, as the very basis of the negotiation, +assume the ill faith and treachery of those they have to deal with? The +terms, as against us, must be such as imply a full security against a +treacherous conduct,--that is, such terms as this Directory stated in +its first declaration, to place us "in an utter impossibility of +executing our wretched projects." This is the omen, and the sole omen, +under which we have consented to open our treaty. + +The second observation I have to make upon it (much connected, +undoubtedly, with the first) is, that they have informed you of the +result they propose from the kind of peace they mean to grant you, +--that is to say, the union they propose among nations with the view of +rivalling our trade and destroying our naval power; and this they +suppose (and with good reason, too) must be the inevitable effect of +their peace. It forms one of their principal grounds for suspecting our +ministers could not be in good earnest in their proposition. They make +no scruple beforehand to tell you the whole of what they intend; and +this is what we call, in the modern style, the acceptance of a +proposition for peace! In old language it would be called a most +haughty, offensive, and insolent rejection of all treaty. + +Thirdly, they tell you what they conceive to be the perfidious policy +which dictates your delusive offer: that is, the design of cheating not +only them, but the people of England, against whose interest and +inclination this war is supposed to be carried on. + +If we proceed in this business, under this preliminary declaration, it +seems to me that we admit, (now for the third time,) by something a +great deal stronger than words, the truth of the charges of every kind +which they make upon the British ministry, and the grounds of those foul +imputations. The language used by us, which in other circumstances would +not be exceptionable, in this case tends very strongly to confirm and +realize the suspicion of our enemy: I mean the declaration, that, if we +do not obtain such terms of peace as suits our opinion of what our +interests require, _then_, and in _that_ case, we shall continue the war +with vigor. This offer, so reasoned, plainly implies, that, without it, +our leaders themselves entertain great doubts of the opinion and good +affections of the British people; otherwise there does not appear any +cause why we should proceed, under the scandalous construction of our +enemy, upon the former offer made by Mr. Wickham, and on the new offer +made directly at Paris. It is not, therefore, from a sense of dignity, +but from the danger of radicating that false sentiment in the breasts of +the enemy, that I think, under the auspices of this declaration, we +cannot, with the least hope of a good event, or, indeed, with any +regard to the common safety, proceed in the train of this negotiation. +I wish ministry would seriously consider the importance of their seeming +to confirm the enemy in an opinion that his frequent use of appeals to +the people against their government has not been without its effect. If +it puts an end to this war, it will render another impracticable. + +Whoever goes to the Directorial presence under this passport, with this +offensive comment and foul explanation, goes, in the avowed sense of the +court to which he is sent, as the instrument of a government dissociated +from the interests and wishes of the nation, for the purpose of cheating +both the people of France and the people of England. He goes out the +declared emissary of a faithless ministry. He has perfidy for his +credentials. He has national weakness for his full powers. I yet doubt +whether any one can be found to invest himself with that character. If +there should, it would be pleasant to read his instructions on the +answer which he is to give to the Directory, in case they should repeat +to him the substance of the manifesto which he carries with him in his +portfolio. + +So much for the _first_ manifesto of the Regicide Court which went along +with the passport. Lest this declaration should seem the effect of +haste, or a mere sudden effusion of pride and insolence, on full +deliberation, about a week after comes out a second. This manifesto is +dated the 5th of October, one day before the speech from the throne, on +the vigil of the festive day of cordial unanimity so happily celebrated +by all parties in the British Parliament. In this piece the Regicides, +our worthy friends, (I call them by advance and by courtesy what by law +I shall be obliged to call them hereafter,) our worthy friends, I say, +renew and enforce the former declaration concerning our faith and +sincerity, which they pinned to our passport. On three other points, +which run through all their declarations, they are more explicit than +ever. + +First, they more directly undertake to be the real representatives of +the people of this kingdom: and on a supposition, in which they agree +with our Parliamentary reformers, that the House of Commons is not that +representative, the function being vacant, they, as our true +constitutional organ, inform his Majesty and the world of the sense of +the nation. They tell us that "the English people see with regret his +Majesty's government squandering away the funds which had been granted +to him." This astonishing assumption of the public voice of England is +but a slight foretaste of the usurpation which, on a peace, we may be +assured they will make of all the powers in all the parts of our vassal +Constitution. "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be +done in the dry?" + +Next they tell us, as a condition to our treaty, that "this government +must abjure the unjust hatred it bears to them, and at last open its +ears to the voice of humanity." Truly, this is, even from them, an +extraordinary demand. Hitherto, it seems, we have put wax into our ears, +to shut them up against the tender, soothing strains, in the +_affettuoso_ of humanity, warbled from the throats of Reubell, Carnot, +Tallien, and the whole chorus of confiscators, domiciliary visitors, +committee-men of research, jurors and presidents of revolutionary +tribunals, regicides, assassins, massacrers, and Septembrisers. It is +not difficult to discern what sort of humanity our government is to +learn from these Siren singers. Our government also; I admit, with some +reason, as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required to abjure +the unjust hatred which it bears to this body of honor and virtue. I +thank God I am neither a minister nor a leader of opposition. I protest +I cannot do what they desire. I could not do it, if I were under the +guillotine,--or, as they ingeniously and pleasantly express it, "looking +out of the little national window." Even at that opening I could receive +none of their light. I am fortified against all such affections by the +declaration of the government, which I must yet consider as lawful, made +on the 29th of October, 1793,[27] and still ringing in my ears. This +Declaration was transmitted not only to all our commanders by sea and +land, but to our ministers in every court of Europe. It is the most +eloquent and highly finished in the style, the most judicious in the +choice of topics, the most orderly in the arrangement, and the most rich +in the coloring, without employing the smallest degree of exaggeration, +of any state-paper that has ever yet appeared. An ancient writer +(Plutarch, I think it is) quotes some verses on the eloquence of +Pericles, who is called "the only orator that left stings in the minds +of his hearers." Like his, the eloquence of the Declaration, not +contradicting, but enforcing, sentiments of the truest humanity, has +left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind and +never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder; never can the +throbbings they have created be assuaged by all the emollient cataplasms +of robbery and confiscation. I _cannot_ love the Republic. + +The third point, which they have more clearly expressed than ever, is of +equal importance with the rest, and with them furnishes a complete view +of the Regicide system. For they demand as a condition, without which +our ambassador of obedience cannot be received with any hope of success, +that he shall be "provided with full powers to negotiate a peace between +the French Republic and Great Britain, and to conclude it _definitively_ +between the TWO powers." With their spear they draw a circle about us. +They will hear nothing of a joint treaty. We must make a peace +separately from our allies. We must, as the very first and preliminary +step, be guilty of that perfidy towards our friends and associates with +which they reproach us in our transactions with them, our enemies. We +are called upon scandalously to betray the fundamental securities to +ourselves and to all nations. In my opinion, (it is perhaps but a poor +one,) if we are meanly bold enough to send an ambassador such as this +official note of the enemy requires, we cannot even dispatch our +emissary without danger of being charged with a breach of our alliance. +Government now understands the full meaning of the passport. + +Strange revolutions have happened in the ways of thinking and in the +feelings of men; but it is a very extraordinary coalition of parties +indeed, and a kind of unheard-of unanimity in public councils, which can +impose this new-discovered system of negotiation, as sound national +policy, on the understanding of a spectator of this wonderful scene, who +judges on the principles of anything he ever before saw, read, or heard +of, and, above all, on the understanding of a person who has in his eye +the transactions of the last seven years. + +I know it is supposed, that, if good terms of capitulation are not +granted, after we have thus so repeatedly hung out the white flag, the +national spirit will revive with tenfold ardor. This is an experiment +cautiously to be made. _Reculer pour mieux sauter_, according to the +French byword, cannot be trusted to as a general rule of conduct. To +diet a man into weakness and languor, afterwards to give him the greater +strength, has more of the empiric than the rational physician. It is +true that some persons have been kicked into courage,--and this is no +bad hint to give to those who are too forward and liberal in bestowing +insults and outrages on their passive companions; but such a course does +not at first view appear a well-chosen discipline to form men to a nice +sense of honor or a quick resentment of injuries. A long habit of +humiliation does not seem a very good preparative to manly and vigorous +sentiment. It may not leave, perhaps, enough of energy in the mind +fairly to discern what are good terms or what are not. Men low and +dispirited may regard those terms as not at all amiss which in another +state of mind they would think intolerable: if they grow peevish in this +state of mind, they may be roused, not against the enemy whom they have +been taught to fear, but against the ministry,[28] who are more within +their reach, and who have refused conditions that are not unreasonable, +from power that they have been taught to consider as irresistible. + +If all that for some months I have heard have the least foundation, (I +hope it has not,) the ministers are, perhaps, not quite so much to be +blamed as their condition is to be lamented. I have been given to +understand that these proceedings are not in their origin properly +theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the House of Commons. It is +said that ministers act, not according to the votes, but according to +the dispositions, of the majority. I hear that the minority has long +since spoken the general sense of the nation; and that to prevent those +who compose it from having the open and avowed lead in that House, or +perhaps in both Houses, it was necessary to preoccupy their ground, and +to take their propositions out of their mouths, even with the hazard of +being afterwards reproached with a compliance which it was foreseen +would be fruitless. + +If the general disposition of the people be, as I hear it is, for an +immediate peace with Regicide, without so much as considering our public +and solemn engagements to the party in France whose cause we had +espoused, or the engagements expressed in our general alliances, not +only without an inquiry into the terms, but with a certain knowledge +that none but the worst terms will be offered, it is all over with us. +It is strange, but it may be true, that, as the danger from Jacobinism +is increased in my eyes and in yours, the fear of it is lessened in the +eyes of many people who formerly regarded it with horror. It seems, they +act under the impression of terrors of another sort, which have +frightened them out of their first apprehensions. But let their fears, +or their hopes, or their desires, be what they will, they should +recollect that they who would make peace without a previous knowledge of +the terms make a surrender. They are conquered. They do not treat; they +receive the law. Is this the disposition of the people of England? Then +the people of England are contented to seek in the kindness of a +foreign, systematic enemy, combined with a dangerous faction at home, a +security which they cannot find in their own patriotism and their own +courage. They are willing to trust to the sympathy of regicides the +guaranty of the British monarchy. They are content to rest their +religion on the piety of atheists by establishment. They are satisfied +to seek in the clemency of practised murderers the security of their +lives. They are pleased to confide their property to the safeguard of +those who are robbers by inclination, interest, habit, and system. If +this be our deliberate mind, truly we deserve to lose, what it is +impossible we should long retain, the name of a nation. + +In matters of state, a constitutional competence to act is in many cases +the smallest part of the question. Without disputing (God forbid I +should dispute!) the sole competence of the king and the Parliament, +each in its province, to decide on war and peace, I venture to say no +war _can_ be long carried on against the will of the people. This war, +in particular, cannot be carried on, unless they are enthusiastically in +favor of it. Acquiescence will not do. There must be zeal. Universal +zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked +for; neither is it necessary. Zeal in the larger part carries the force +of the whole. Without this, no government, certainly not our +government, is capable of a great war. None of the ancient, regular +governments have wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and at +home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. It must be some +portentous thing, like Regicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy. +Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolific than the country of +old called _ferax monstrorum_, shows symptoms of being almost effete +already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace comes to +recruit her fertility. But whatever may be represented concerning the +meanness of the popular spirit, I, for one, do not think so desperately +of the British nation. Our minds, as I said, are light, but they are not +depraved. We are dreadfully open to delusion and to dejection; but we +are capable of being animated and undeceived. + +It cannot be concealed: we are a divided people. But in divisions, where +a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. I have +often endeavored to compute and to class those who, in any political +view, are to be called the people. Without doing something of this sort, +we must proceed absurdly. We should not be much wiser, if we pretended +to very great accuracy in our estimate; but I think, in the calculation +I have made, the error cannot be very material. In England and Scotland, +I compute that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable +leisure for such discussions, and of some means of information, more or +less, and who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such,) +may amount to about four hundred thousand. There is such a thing as a +natural representative of the people. This body is that representative; +and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial +representative depends. This is the British public; and it is a public +very numerous. The rest, when feeble, are the objects of +protection,--when strong, the means of force. They who affect to +consider that part of us in any other light insult while they cajole us; +they do not want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as +soldiers for battle. + +Of these four hundred thousand political citizens, I look upon one +fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins, utterly incapable +of amendment, objects of eternal vigilance, and, when they break out, of +legal constraint. On these, no reason, no argument, no example, no +venerable authority, can have the slightest influence. They desire a +change; and they will have it, if they can. If they cannot have it by +English cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the +cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incorporated. It +is only their assured and confident expectation of the advantages of +French fraternity, and the approaching blessings of Regicide +intercourse, that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a +momentary quiet. + +This minority is great and formidable. I do not know whether, if I aimed +at the total overthrow of a kingdom, I should wish to be incumbered with +a larger body of partisans. They are more easily disciplined and +directed than if the number were greater. These, by their spirit of +intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a force far +superior to their numbers, and, if times grew the least critical, have +the means of debauching or intimidating many of those who are now sound, +as well as of adding to their force large bodies of the more passive +part of the nation. This minority is numerous enough to make a mighty +cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehemently to +desire. By passing from place to place with a velocity incredible, and +diversifying their character and description, they are capable of +mimicking the general voice. We must not always judge of the generality +of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. + +The majority, the other four fifths, is perfectly sound, and of the best +possible disposition to religion, to government, to the true and +undivided interest of their country. Such men are naturally disposed to +peace. They who are in possession of all they wish are languid and +improvident. With this fault, (and I admit its existence in all its +extent,) they would not endure to hear of a peace that led to the ruin +of everything for which peace is dear to them. However, the desire of +peace is essentially the weak side of that kind of men. All men that are +ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. There they +are unguarded. Above all, good men do not suspect that their destruction +is attempted through their virtues. This their enemies are perfectly +aware of; and accordingly they, the most turbulent of mankind, who never +made a scruple to shake the tranquillity of their country to its centre, +raise a continual cry for peace with France. "Peace with Regicide, and +war with the rest of the world," is their motto. From the beginning, and +even whilst the French gave the blows, and we hardly opposed the _vis +inertiæ_ to their efforts, from that day to this hour, like importunate +Guinea-fowls, crying one note day and night, they have called for +peace. + +In this they are, as I confess in all things they are, perfectly +consistent. They who wish to unite themselves to your enemies naturally +desire that you should disarm yourself by a peace with these enemies. +But it passes my conception how they who wish well to their country on +its ancient system of laws and manners come not to be doubly alarmed, +when they find nothing but a clamor for peace in the mouths of the men +on earth the least disposed to it in their natural or in their habitual +character. + +I have a good opinion of the general abilities of the Jacobins: not that +I suppose them better born than others; but strong passions awaken the +faculties; they suffer not a particle of the man to be lost. The spirit +of enterprise gives to this description the full use of all their native +energies. If I have reason to conceive that my enemy, who, as such, must +have an interest in my destruction, is also a person of discernment and +sagacity, then I must be quite sure, that, in a contest, the object he +violently pursues is the very thing by which my ruin is likely to be the +most perfectly accomplished. Why do the Jacobins cry for peace? Because +they know, that, this point gained, the rest will follow of course. On +our part, why are all the rules of prudence, as sure as the laws of +material Nature, to be, at this time reversed? How comes it, that now, +for the first time, men think it right to be governed by the counsels of +their enemies? Ought they not rather to tremble, when they are persuaded +to travel on the same road and to tend to the same place of rest? + +The minority I speak of is not susceptible of an impression from the +topics of argument to be used to the larger part of the community. I +therefore do not address to them any part of what I have to say. The +more forcibly I drive my arguments against their system, so as to make +an impression where I wish to make it, the more strongly I rivet them in +their sentiments. As for us, who compose the far larger, and what I call +the far better part of the people, let me say, that we have not been +quite fairly dealt with, when called to this deliberation. The Jacobin +minority have been abundantly supplied with stores and provisions of all +kinds towards their warfare. No sort of argumentative materials, suited +to their purposes, have been withheld. False they are, unsound, +sophistical; but they are regular in their direction. They all bear one +way, and they all go to the support of the substantial merits of their +cause. The others have not had the question so much as fairly stated to +them. + +There has not been in this century any foreign peace or war, in its +origin the fruit of popular desire, except the war that was made with +Spain in 1739. Sir Robert Walpole was forced into the war by the people, +who were inflamed to this measure by the most leading politicians, by +the first orators, and the greatest poets of the time. For that war Pope +sang his dying notes. For that war Johnson, in more energetic strains, +employed the voice of his early genius. For that war Glover +distinguished himself in the way in which his muse was the most natural +and happy. The crowd readily followed the politicians in the cry for a +war which threatened little bloodshed, and which promised victories that +were attended with something more solid than glory. A war with Spain was +a war of plunder. In the present conflict with Regicide, Mr. Pitt has +not hitherto had, nor will perhaps for a few days have, many prizes to +hold out in the lottery of war, to tempt the lower part of our +character. He can only maintain it by an appeal to the higher; and to +those in whom that higher part is the most predominant he must look the +most for his support. Whilst he holds out no inducements to the wise nor +bribes to the avaricious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace +ten times more ruinous than the most disastrous war. The weaker he is in +the fund of motives which apply to our avarice, to our laziness, and to +our lassitude, if he means to carry the war to any end at all, the +stronger he ought to be in his addresses to our magnanimity and to our +reason. + +In stating that Walpole was driven by a popular clamor into a measure +not to be justified, I do not mean wholly to excuse his conduct. My time +of observation did not exactly coincide with that event, but I read much +of the controversies then carried on. Several years after the contests +of parties had ceased, the people were amused, and in a degree warmed +with them. The events of that era seemed then of magnitude, which the +revolutions of our time have reduced to parochial importance; and the +debates which then shook the nation now appear of no higher moment than +a discussion in a vestry. When I was very young, a general fashion told +me I was to admire some of the writings against that minister; a little +more maturity taught me as much to despise them. I observed one fault in +his general proceeding. He never manfully put forward the entire +strength of his cause. He temporized, be managed, and, adopting very +nearly the sentiments of his adversaries, he opposed their inferences. +This, for a political commander, is the choice of a weak post. His +adversaries had the better of the argument as he handled it, not as the +reason and justice of his cause enabled him to manage it. I say this, +after having seen, and with some care examined, the original documents +concerning certain important transactions of those times. They perfectly +satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war, and of the falsehood +of the colors which, to his own ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, +he suffered to be daubed over that measure. Some years after, it was my +fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that +minister, and with those who principally excited that clamor. None of +them, no, not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to +justify their conduct. They condemned it as freely as they would have +done in commenting upon any proceeding in history in which they were +totally unconcerned. Thus it will be. They who stir up the people to +improper desires, whether of peace or war, will be condemned by +themselves. They who weakly yield to them will be condemned by history. + +In my opinion, the present ministry are as far from doing full justice +to their cause in this war as Walpole was from doing justice to the +peace which at that time he was willing to preserve. They throw the +light on one side only of their case; though it is impossible they +should not observe that the other side, which is kept in the shade, has +its importance too. They must know that France is formidable, not only +as she is France, but as she is Jacobin France. They knew from the +beginning that the Jacobin party was not confined to that country. They +knew, they felt, the strong disposition of the same faction in both +countries to communicate and to coöperate. For some time past, these two +points have been kept, and even industriously kept, out of sight. France +is considered as merely a foreign power, and the seditious English only +as a domestic faction. The merits of the war with the former have been +argued solely on political grounds. To prevent the mischievous doctrines +of the latter from corrupting our minds, matter and argument have been +supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit, on the excellency of our own +government. But nothing has been done to make us feel in what manner the +safety of that government is connected with the principle and with the +issue of this war. For anything which in the late discussion has +appeared, the war is entirely collateral to the state of Jacobinism,--as +truly a foreign war to us and to all our home concerns as the war with +Spain in 1739, about _Guardacostas_, the Madrid Convention, and the +fable of Captain Jenkins's ears. + +Whenever the adverse party has raised a cry for peace with the Regicide, +the answer has been little more than this: "That the administration +wished for such a peace full as much as the opposition, but that the +time was not convenient for making it." Whatever else has been said was +much in the same spirit. Reasons of this kind never touched the +substantial merits of the war. They were in the nature of dilatory +pleas, exceptions of form, previous questions. Accordingly, all the +arguments against a compliance with what was represented as the popular +desire (urged on with all possible vehemence and earnestness by the +Jacobins) have appeared flat and languid, feeble and evasive. They +appeared to aim only at gaining time. They never entered into the +peculiar and distinctive character of the war. They spoke neither to the +understanding nor to the heart. Cold as ice themselves, they never could +kindle in our breasts a spark of that zeal which is necessary to a +conflict with an adverse zeal; much less were they made to infuse into +our minds that stubborn, persevering spirit which alone is capable of +bearing up against those vicissitudes of fortune which will probably +occur, and those burdens which must be inevitably borne, in a long war. +I speak it emphatically, and with a desire that it should be marked,--in +a _long_ war; because, without such a war, no experience has yet told us +that a dangerous power has ever been reduced to measure or to reason. I +do not throw back my view to the Peloponnesian War of twenty-seven +years; nor to two of the Punic Wars, the first of twenty-four, the +second of eighteen; nor to the more recent war concluded by the Treaty +of Westphalia, which continued, I think, for thirty. I go to what is but +just fallen behind living memory, and immediately touches our own +country. Let the portion of our history from the year 1689 to 1713 be +brought before us. We shall find that in all that period of twenty-four +years there were hardly five that could be called a season of peace; and +the interval between the two wars was in reality nothing more than a +very active preparation for renovated hostility. During that period, +every one of the propositions of peace came from the enemy: the first, +when they were accepted, at the Peace of Ryswick; the second, where they +were rejected, at the Congress at Gertruydenberg; the last, when the war +ended by the Treaty of Utrecht. Even then, a very great part of the +nation, and that which contained by far the most intelligent statesmen, +was against the conclusion of the war. I do not enter into the merits of +that question as between the parties. I only state the existence of that +opinion as a fact, from whence you may draw such an inference as you +think properly arises from it. + +It is for us at present to recollect what we have been, and to consider +what, if we please, we may be still. At the period of those wars our +principal strength was found in the resolution of the people, and that +in the resolution of a part only of the then whole, which bore no +proportion to our existing magnitude. England and Scotland were not +united at the beginning of that mighty struggle. When, in the course of +the contest, they were conjoined, it was in a raw, an ill-cemented, an +unproductive, union. For the whole duration of the war, and long after, +the names and other outward and visible signs of approximation rather +augmented than diminished our insular feuds. They were rather the causes +of new discontents and new troubles than promoters of cordiality and +affection. The now single and potent Great Britain was then not only two +countries, but, from the party heats in both, and the divisions formed +in each of them, each of the old kingdoms within itself, in effect, was +made up of two hostile nations. Ireland, now so large a source of the +common opulence and power, and which, wisely managed, might be made much +more beneficial and much more effective, was then the heaviest of the +burdens. An army, not much less than forty thousand men, was drawn from +the general effort, to keep that kingdom in a poor, unfruitful, and +resourceless subjection. + +Such was the state of the empire. The state of our finances was worse, +if possible. Every branch of the revenue became less productive after +the Revolution. Silver, not as now a sort of counter, but the body of +the current coin, was reduced so low as not to have above three parts in +four of the value in the shilling. In the greater part the value hardly +amounted to a fourth. It required a dead expense of three millions +sterling to renew the coinage. Public credit, that great, but ambiguous +principle, which has so often been predicted as the cause of our certain +ruin, but which for a century has been the constant companion, and often +the means, of our prosperity and greatness, had its origin, and was +cradled, I may say, in bankruptcy and beggary. At this day we have seen +parties contending to be admitted, at a moderate premium, to advance +eighteen millions to the exchequer. For infinitely smaller loans, the +Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, Montagu, the father of public +credit, counter-securing the state by the appearance of the city with +the Lord Mayor of London at his side, was obliged, like a solicitor for +an hospital, to go cap in hand from shop to shop, to borrow an hundred +pound, and even smaller sums. When made up in driblets as they could, +their best securities were at an interest of twelve per cent. Even the +paper of the Bank (now at par with cash, and generally preferred to it) +was often at a discount of twenty per cent. By this the state of the +rest may be judged. + +As to our commerce, the imports and exports of the nation, now +six-and-forty million, did not then amount to ten. The inland trade, +which is commonly passed by in this sort of estimates, but which, in +part growing out of the foreign, and connected with it, is more +advantageous and more substantially nutritive to the state, is not only +grown in a proportion of near five to one as the foreign, but has been +augmented at least in a tenfold proportion. When I came to England, I +remember but one river navigation, the rate of carriage on which was +limited by an act of Parliament. It was made in the reign of William the +Third. I mean that of the Aire and Calder. The rate was settled at +thirteen pence. So high a price demonstrated the feebleness of these +beginnings of our inland intercourse. In my time, one of the longest and +sharpest contests I remember in your House, and which rather resembled a +violent contention amongst national parties than a local dispute, was, +as well as I can recollect, to hold the price up to threepence. Even +this, which a very scanty justice to the proprietors required, was done +with infinite difficulty. As to private credit, there were not, as I +believe, twelve bankers' shops at that time out of London. In this their +number, when I first saw the country, I cannot be quite exact; but +certainly those machines of domestic credit were then very few. They are +now in almost every market-town: and this circumstance (whether the +thing be carried to an excess or not) demonstrates the astonishing +increase of private confidence, of general circulation, and of internal +commerce,--an increase out of all proportion to the growth of the +foreign trade. Our naval strength in the time of King William's war was +nearly matched by that of France; and though conjoined with Holland, +then a maritime power hardly inferior to our own, even with that force +we were not always victorious. Though finally superior, the allied +fleets experienced many unpleasant reverses on their own element. In two +years three thousand vessels were taken from the English trade. On the +Continent we lost almost every battle we fought. + +In 1697, (it is not quite an hundred years ago,) in that state of +things, amidst the general debasement of the coin, the fall of the +ordinary revenue, the failure of all the extraordinary supplies, the +ruin of commerce, and the almost total extinction of an infant credit, +the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, whom we have just seen begging +from door to door, came forward to move a resolution full of vigor, in +which, far from being discouraged by the generally adverse fortune and +the long continuance of the war, the Commons agreed to address the crown +in the following manly, spirited, and truly animating style:-- + +"This is the EIGHTH year in which your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal +subjects, the Commons in Parliament assembled, have assisted your +Majesty with large supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, in +defence of our religion, preservation of our laws, and vindication of +the rights and liberties of the people of England." + +Afterwards they proceed in this manner:-- + +"And to show to your Majesty and all Christendom that the Commons of +England will not be _amused_ or diverted from their firm resolutions of +obtaining by WAR a safe and honorable peace, we do, in the name of all +those we represent, renew our assurances to your Majesty that this House +will support your Majesty and your government against all your enemies, +both at home and abroad, and that they will effectually assist you in +the prosecution and carrying on the present war against France." + +The amusement and diversion they speak of was the suggestion of a treaty +_proposed by the enemy_, and announced from the throne. Thus the people +of England felt in the _eighth_, not in the _fourth_ year of the war. No +sighing or panting after negotiation; no motions from the opposition to +force the ministry into a peace; no messages from ministers to palsy and +deaden the resolution of Parliament or the spirit of the nation. They +did not so much as advise the king to listen to the propositions of the +enemy, nor to seek for peace, but through the mediation of a vigorous +war. This address was moved in an hot, a divided, a factious, and, in a +great part, disaffected House of Commons; and it was carried, _nemine +contradicente_. + +While that first war (which was ill smothered by the Treaty of Ryswick) +slept in the thin ashes of a seeming peace, a new conflagration was in +its immediate causes. A fresh and a far greater war was in preparation. +A year had hardly elapsed, when arrangements were made for renewing the +contest with tenfold fury. The steps which were taken, at that time, to +compose, to reconcile, to unite, and to discipline all Europe against +the growth of France, certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and +most interesting part in the history of that great period. It formed the +masterpiece of King William's policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Full +of the idea of preserving not only a local civil liberty united with +order to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the +order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the +king called upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture "_to +preserve to England the weight and influence it at present had on the +councils and affairs_ ABROAD. It will be requisite _Europe_ Should see +you will not be wanting to yourselves." + +Baffled as that monarch was, and almost heartbroken at the +disappointment he met with in the mode he first proposed for that great +end, he held on his course. He was faithful to his object; and in +councils, as in arms, over and over again repulsed, over and over again +he returned to the charge. All the mortifications he had suffered from +the last Parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from that newly +chosen, were not capable of relaxing the vigor of his mind. He was in +Holland when he combined the vast plan of his foreign negotiations. When +he came to open his design to his ministers in England, even the sober +firmness of Somers, the undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the +adventurous spirit of Montagu and Orford were staggered. They were not +yet mounted to the elevation of the king. The cabinet, then the regency, +met on the subject at Tunbridge Wells, the 28th of August, 1698; and +there, Lord Somers holding the pen, after expressing doubts on the state +of the Continent, which they ultimately refer to the king, as best +informed, they give him a most discouraging portrait of the spirit of +this nation. "So far as relates to England," say these ministers, "it +would be want of duty not to give your Majesty this clear account: that +there is _a deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally_, so +as not at all to be disposed to _the thought of entering into a new +war_; and that they seem to be _tired out with taxes_ to a degree beyond +what was discerned, till it appeared upon the occasion of _the late +elections_. This is the truth of the fact, upon which your Majesty will +determine what resolutions are proper to be taken." + +His Majesty did determine,--and did take and pursue his resolution. In +all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with Parliament +totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of +his people by his fortitude, to steady their fickleness by his +constancy, to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom, to +sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people, +he resolved to make them great and glorious,--to make England, inclined +to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary +angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers, who staggered under +the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt +themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul, he +renewed in them their ancient heart, he rallied them in the same cause. + +It required some time to accomplish this work. The people were first +gained, and, through them, their distracted representatives. Under the +influence of King William, Holland had rejected the allurements of every +seduction, and had resisted the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal +at her gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all separate +treaty, or anything which might for a moment appear to divide her +affection or her interest or even to distinguish her in identity from +England. Having settled the great point of the consolidation (which he +hoped would be eternal) of the countries made for a common interest and +common sentiment, the king, in his message to both Houses, calls their +attention to the affairs of the _States General_. The House of Lords +was perfectly sound, and entirely impressed with the wisdom and dignity +of the king's proceedings. In answer to the message, which you will +observe was narrowed to a single point, (the danger of the States +General,) after the usual professions of zeal for his service, the Lords +opened themselves at large. They go far beyond the demands of the +message. They express themselves as follows. + +"We take this occasion _further_ to assure your Majesty we are very +sensible of _the great and imminent danger to which the States General +are at present exposed; and we do perfectly agree with them in believing +that their safety and ours are so inseparably united that whatsoever is +ruin to the one must be fatal to the other_. + +"And we humbly desire your Majesty will be pleased _not only_ to make +good all the articles of any _former_ treaty to the States General, but +that you will enter into a strict league offensive and defensive with +them _for our common preservation; and that you will invite into it all +princes and states who are concerned in the present visible danger +arising from the union of France and Spain_. + +"And we further desire your Majesty, that you will be pleased to enter +into such alliances with the _Emperor_ as your Majesty shall think fit, +pursuant to the ends of the treaty of 1689: towards all which we assure +your Majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not doubting, but, +whenever your Majesty shall be obliged to engage for the defence of your +allies, _and for securing the liberty and quiet of Europe_, Almighty God +will protect your sacred person in so righteous a cause, and that the +unanimity, wealth, and courage of your subjects will carry your Majesty +with honor and success _through all the difficulties of a_ JUST WAR." + +The House of Commons was more reserved. The late popular disposition was +still in a great degree prevalent in the representative, after it had +been made to change in the constituent body. The principle of the Grand +Alliance was not directly recognized in the resolution of the Commons, +nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance was +formed for the war. However, compelled by the returning sense of the +people, they went so far as to fix the three great immovable pillars of +the safety and greatness of England, as they were then, as they are now, +and as they must ever be to the end of time. They asserted in general +terms the necessity of supporting Holland, of keeping united with our +allies, and maintaining the liberty of Europe; though they restricted +their vote to the succors stipulated by actual treaty. But now they were +fairly embarked, they were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; +and the whole nation, split before into an hundred adverse factions, +with a king at its head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole +nation, lords, commons, and people, proceeded as one body informed by +one soul. Under the British union, the union of Europe was consolidated; +and it long held together with a degree of cohesion, firmness, and +fidelity not known before or since in any political combination of that +extent. + +Just as the last hand was given to this immense and complicated machine, +the master workman died. But the work was formed on true mechanical +principles, and it was as truly wrought. It went by the impulse it had +received from the first mover. The man was dead; but the Grand Alliance +survived, in which King William lived and reigned. That heartless and +dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had represented about two years +before as dead in energy and operation, continued that war, to which it +was supposed they were unequal in mind and in means, for near thirteen +years. + +For what have I entered into all this detail? To what purpose have I +recalled your view to the end of the last century? It has been done to +show that the British nation was then a great people,--to point out how +and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar level, and to +take that lead which they assumed among mankind. To qualify us for that +preëminence, we had then an high mind and a constancy unconquerable; we +were then inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were durable as +well as warm, such as corresponded to the great interests we had at +stake. This force of character was inspired, as all such spirit must +ever be, from above. Government gave the impulse. As well may we fancy +that of itself the sea will swell, and that without winds the billows +will insult the adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people will +be moved, and elevated, and continue by a steady and permanent direction +to bear upon one point, without the influence of superior authority or +superior mind. + +This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been given in this war; and +it ought to have been continued to it at every instant. It is made, if +ever war was made, to touch all the great springs of action in the human +breast. It ought not to have been a war of apology. The minister had, in +this conflict, wherewithal to glory in success, to be consoled in +adversity, to hold high his principle in all fortunes. If it were not +given him to support the falling edifice, he ought to bury himself under +the ruins of the civilized world. All the art of Greece and all the +pride and power of Eastern monarchs never heaped upon their ashes so +grand a monument. + +There were days when his great mind was up to the crisis of the world he +is called to act in.[29] His manly eloquence was equal to the elevated +wisdom of such sentiments. But the little have triumphed over the great: +an unnatural, (as it should seem,) not an unusual victory. I am sure you +cannot forget with how much uneasiness we heard, in conversation, the +language of more than one gentleman at the opening of this +contest,--"that he was willing to try the war for a year or two, and, if +it did not succeed, then to vote for peace." As if war was a matter of +experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolic! +As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her murderous spear +in her hand and her Gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted +with! We ought with reverence to approach that tremendous divinity, that +loves courage, but commands counsel. War never leaves where it found a +nation. It is never to be entered into without a mature +deliberation,--not a deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing +indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment. +When so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without reason as valid, as +fully and as extensively considered. Peace may be made as unadvisedly as +war. Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very +rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils +from which they would fly. + +In that great war carried on against Louis the Fourteenth for near +eighteen years, government spared no pains to satisfy the nation, that, +though they were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was not +their ultimate object; but that everything dear to them, in religion, in +law, in liberty, everything which as freemen, as Englishmen, and as +citizens of the great commonwealth of Christendom, they had at heart, +was then at stake. This was to know the true art of gaining the +affections and confidence of an high-minded people; this was to +understand human nature. A danger to avert a danger, a present +inconvenience and suffering to prevent a foreseen future and a worse +calamity,--these are the motives that belong to an animal who in his +constitution is at once adventurous and provident, circumspect and +daring,--whom his Creator has made, as the poet says, "of large +discourse, looking before and after." But never can a vehement and +sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of +calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts +of adversity. Even where men are willing, as sometimes they are, to +barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety for the +gratification of their avarice, the passion which animates them to that +sort of conflict, like all the shortsighted passions, must see its +objects distinct and near at hand. The passions of the lower order are +hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder,--contingent spoil,--future, +long adjourned, uncertain booty,--pillage which must enrich a late +posterity, and which possibly may not reach to posterity at all,--these, +for any length of time, will never support a mercenary war. The people +are in the right. The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. +On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar +are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should +never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our +family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The +rest is vanity; the rest is crime. + +In the war of the Grand Alliance most of these considerations +voluntarily and naturally had their part. Some were pressed into the +service. The political interest easily went in the track of the natural +sentiment. In the reverse course the carriage does not follow freely. I +am sure the natural feeling, as I have just said, is a far more +predominant ingredient in this war than in that of any other that ever +was waged by this kingdom. + +If the war made to prevent the union of two crowns upon one head was a +just war, this, which is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all +heads which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to smite off the +sacred heads themselves, this is a just war. + +If a war to prevent Louis the Fourteenth from imposing his religion was +just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the Sixteenth from +imposing their irreligion upon us is just: a war to prevent the +operation of a system which makes life without dignity and death without +hope is a just war. + +If to preserve political independence and civil freedom to nations was a +just ground of war, a war to preserve national independence, property, +liberty, life, and honor from certain universal havoc is a war just +necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every +principle, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them +all, and all equally, has an existence in the world. + +You, who have looked at this matter with as fair and impartial an eye as +can be united with a feeling heart, you will not think it an hardy +assertion, when I affirm that it were far better to be conquered by any +other nation than to have this faction for a neighbor. Before I felt +myself authorized to say this, I considered the state of all the +countries in Europe for these last three hundred years, which have been +obliged to submit to a foreign law. In most of those I found the +condition of the annexed countries even better, certainly not worse, +than the lot of those which were the patrimony of the conqueror. They +wanted some blessings, but they were free from many very great evils. +They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorraine, +Alsatia, under the old government of France. Such was Silesia under the +King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabric +are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions, and to +end at last in being conquered, if not to her dominion, to her +resemblance. But when we talk of conquest by other nations, it is only +to put a case. This is the only power in Europe by which it is +_possible_ we should be conquered. To live under the continual dread of +such immeasurable evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without +the dread of them is to turn the danger into the disaster. The influence +of such a France is equal to a war, its example more wasting than an +hostile irruption. The hostility with any other power is separable and +accidental: this power, by the very condition of its existence, by its +very essential constitution, is in a state of hostility with us, and +with all civilized people.[30] + +A government of the nature of that set up at our very door has never +been hitherto seen or even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it +will be cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious thing to +have a connection with a people who live only under positive, arbitrary, +and changeable institutions,--and those not perfected nor supplied nor +explained by any common, acknowledged rule of moral science. I remember, +that, in one of my last conversations with the late Lord Camden, we were +struck much in the same manner with the abolition in France of the law +as a science of methodized and artificial equity. France, since her +Revolution, is under the sway of a sect whose leaders have deliberately, +at one stroke, demolished the whole body of that jurisprudence which +France had pretty nearly in common with other civilized countries. In +that jurisprudence were contained the elements and principles of the law +of nations, the great ligament of mankind. With the law they have of +course destroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was taught, as +well as all the corporations established for its conservation. I have +not heard of any country, whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa +on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly without some such colleges +and such corporations, except France. No man, in a public or private +concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be +directed: nor is there to be found a professor in any university, or a +practitioner in any court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is +not law in France, in any case whatever. They have not only annulled all +their old treaties, but they have renounced the law of nations, from +whence treaties have their force. With a fixed design they have outlawed +themselves, and to their power outlawed all other nations. + +Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great +politic communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their +republic on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which +the communities of Europe are built. Its foundation is laid in Regicide, +in Jacobinism, and in Atheism; and it has joined to those principles a +body of systematic manners which secures their operation. + +If I am asked how I would be understood in the use of these terms, +Regicide, Jacobinism, Atheism, and a system of correspondent manners, +and their establishment, I will tell you. + +I call a commonwealth _Regicide_ which lays it down as a fixed law of +Nature and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not being a +democracy, is an usurpation,[31]--that all kings, as such, are usurpers, +and, for being kings, may and ought to be put to death, with their +wives, families, and adherents. The commonwealth which acts uniformly +upon those principles, and which, after abolishing every festival of +religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous regicide treason +for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which forces all her people to +observe it,--this I call _Regicide by Establishment_. + +Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country +against its property. When private men form themselves into associations +for the purpose of destroying the preëxisting laws and institutions of +their country,--when they secure to themselves an army by dividing +amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient and lawful +proprietors,--when a state recognizes those acts,--when it does not make +confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations,--when it +has its principal strength and all its resources in such a violation of +property,--when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by +judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal +government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions,--I +call this _Jacobinism by Establishment_. + +I call it _Atheism by Establishment_, when any state, as such, shall not +acknowledge the existence of God as a moral governor of the world,--when +it shall offer to Him no religious or moral worship,--when it shall +abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree,--when it shall +persecute, with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of +confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all its ministers,--when +it shall generally shut up or pull down churches,--when the few +buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose +of making a profane apotheosis of monsters whose vices and crimes have +no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of +general detestation and the severest animadversion of law. When, in the +place of that religion of social benevolence and of individual +self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they institute impious, +blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honor of their vitiated, +perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own +corrupted and bloody republic,--when schools and seminaries are founded +at public expense to poison mankind, from generation to generation, with +the horrible maxims of this impiety,--when, wearied out with incessant +martyrdom, and the cries of a people hungering and thirsting for +religion, they permit it only as a tolerated evil,--I call this _Atheism +by Establishment_. + +When to these establishments of Regicide, of Jacobinism, and of Atheism, +you add the _correspondent system of manners_, no doubt can be left on +the mind of a thinking man concerning their determined hostility to the +human race. Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a +great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, +and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, +exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, +insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give +their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, +they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them. Of this +the new French legislators were aware; therefore, with the same method, +and under the same authority, they settled a system of manners, the most +licentious, prostitute, and abandoned that ever has been known, and at +the same time the most coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. Nothing in +the Revolution, no, not to a phrase or a gesture, not to the fashion of +a hat or a shoe, was left to accident. All has been the result of +design; all has been matter of institution. No mechanical means could be +devised in favor of this incredible system of wickedness and vice, that +has not been employed. The noblest passions, the love of glory, the love +of country, have been debauched into means of its preservation and its +propagation. All sorts of shows and exhibitions, calculated to inflame +and vitiate the imagination and pervert the moral sense, have been +contrived. They have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred drunken +women calling at the bar of the Assembly for the blood of their own +children, as being Royalists or Constitutionalists. Sometimes they have +got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand the murder +of their sons, boasting that Rome had but one Brutus, but that they +could show five hundred. There were instances in which they inverted and +retaliated the impiety, and produced sons who called for the execution +of their parents. The foundation of their republic is laid in moral +paradoxes. Their patriotism is always prodigy. All those instances to be +found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, +at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which +affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for +the instruction of their youth. + +The whole drift of their institution is contrary to that of the wise +legislators of all countries, who aimed at improving instincts into +morals, and at grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural +affections. They, on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate +every benevolent and noble propensity in the mind of men. In their +culture it is a rule always to graft virtues on vices. They think +everything unworthy of the name of public virtue, unless it indicates +violence on the private. All their new institutions (and with them +everything is new) strike at the root of our social nature. Other +legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and +consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavored by every +art to make it sacred. The Christian religion, by confining it to the +pairs, and by rendering that relation indissoluble, has by these two +things done more towards the peace, happiness, settlement, and +civilization of the world than by any other part in this whole scheme of +Divine wisdom. The direct contrary course has been taken in the +synagogue of Antichrist,--I mean in that forge and manufactory of all +evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of 1789. +Those monsters employed the same or greater industry to desecrate and +degrade that state, which other legislators have used to render it holy +and honorable. By a strange, uncalled-for declaration, they pronounced +that marriage was no better than a common civil contract. It was one of +their ordinary tricks, to put their sentiments into the mouths of +certain personated characters, which they theatrically exhibited at the +bar of what ought to be a serious assembly. One of these was brought out +in the figure of a prostitute, whom they called by the affected name of +"a mother without being a wife." This creature they made to call for a +repeal of the incapacities which in civilized states are put upon +bastards. The prostitutes of the Assembly gave to this their puppet the +sanction of their greater impudence. In consequence of the principles +laid down, and the manners authorized, bastards were not long after put +on the footing of the issue of lawful unions. Proceeding in the spirit +of the first authors of their Constitution, succeeding Assemblies went +the full length of the principle, and gave a license to divorce at the +mere pleasure of either party, and at a month's notice. With them the +matrimonial connection is brought into so degraded a state of +concubinage, that I believe none of the wretches in London who keep +warehouses of infamy would give out one of their victims to private +custody on so short and insolent a tenure. There was, indeed, a kind of +profligate equity in giving to women the same licentious power. The +reason they assigned was as infamous as the act: declaring that women +had been too long under the tyranny of parents and of husbands. It is +not necessary to observe upon the horrible consequences of taking one +half of the species wholly out of the guardianship and protection of the +other. + +The practice of divorce, though in some countries permitted, has been +discouraged in all. In the East, polygamy and divorce are in discredit; +and the manners correct the laws. In Rome, whilst Rome was in its +integrity, the few causes allowed for divorce amounted in effect to a +prohibition. They were only three. The arbitrary was totally excluded; +and accordingly some hundreds of years passed without a single example +of that kind. When manners were corrupted, the laws were relaxed; as the +latter always follow the former, when they are not able to regulate them +or to vanquish them. Of this circumstance the legislators of vice and +crime were pleased to take notice, as an inducement to adopt their +regulation: holding out an hope that the permission would as rarely be +made use of. They knew the contrary to be true; and they had taken good +care that the laws should be well seconded by the manners. Their law of +divorce, like all their laws, had not for its object the relief of +domestic uneasiness, but the total corruption of all morals, the total +disconnection of social life. + +It is a matter of curiosity to observe the operation of this +encouragement to disorder. I have before me the Paris paper +correspondent to the usual register of births, marriages, and deaths. +Divorce, happily, is no regular head of registry amongst civilized +nations. With the Jacobins it is remarkable that divorce is not only a +regular head, but it has the post of honor. It occupies the first place +in the list. In the three first months of the year 1793 the number of +divorces in that city amounted to 562; the marriages were 1785: so that +the proportion of divorces to marriages was not much less than one to +three: a thing unexampled, I believe, among mankind. I caused an inquiry +to be made at Doctors' Commons concerning the number of divorces, and +found that all the divorces (which, except by special act of Parliament, +are separations, and not proper divorces) did not amount in all those +courts, and in an hundred years, to much more than one fifth of those +that passed in the single city of Paris in three months. I followed up +the inquiry relative to that city through several of the subsequent +months, until I was tired, and found the proportions still the same. +Since then I have heard that they have declared for a revisal of these +laws: but I know of nothing done. It appears as if the contract that +renovates the world was under no law at all. From this we may take our +estimate of the havoc that has been made through all the relations of +life. With the Jacobins of France, vague intercourse is without +reproach; marriage is reduced to the vilest concubinage; children are +encouraged to cut the throats of their parents; mothers are taught that +tenderness is no part of their character, and, to demonstrate their +attachment to their party, that they ought to make no scruple to rake +with their bloody hands in the bowels of those who came from their own. + +To all this let us join the practice of _cannibalism_, with which, in +the proper terms, and with the greatest truth, their several factions +accuse each other. By cannibalism I mean their devouring, as a nutriment +of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of those they have murdered, +their drinking the blood of their victims, and forcing the victims +themselves to drink the blood of their kindred slaughtered before their +faces. By cannibalism I mean also to signify all their nameless, +unmanly, and abominable insults on the bodies of those they slaughter. + +As to those whom they suffer to die a natural death, they do not permit +them to enjoy the last consolations of mankind, or those rights of +sepulture which indicate hope, and which mere Nature has taught to +mankind, in all countries, to soothe the afflictions and to cover the +infirmity of mortal condition. They disgrace men in the entry into life, +they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course of it, and they +deprive them of all comfort at the conclusion of their dishonored and +depraved existence. Endeavoring to persuade the people that they are no +better than beasts, the whole body of their institution tends to make +them beasts of prey, furious and savage. For this purpose the active +part of them is disciplined into a ferocity which has no parallel. To +this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, unfashioned virtues +which accompany the vices, where the whole are left to grow up together +in the rankness of uncultivated Nature. But nothing is left to Nature in +their systems. + +The same discipline which hardens their hearts relaxes their morals. +Whilst courts of justice were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and +silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, +there were no fewer than nineteen or twenty theatres, great and small, +most of them kept open at the public expense, and all of them crowded +every night. Among the gaunt, haggard forms of famine and nakedness, +amidst the yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the cries of +despair, the song, the dance, the mimic scene, the buffoon laughter, +went on as regularly as in the gay hour of festive peace. I have it from +good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder, and the +gaping planks that poured down blood on the spectators, the space was +hired out for a show of dancing dogs. I think, without concert, we have +made the very same remark, on reading some of their pieces, which, being +written for other purposes, let us into a view of their social life. It +struck us that the habits of Paris had no resemblance to the finished +virtues, or to the polished vice, and elegant, though not blameless +luxury, of the capital of a great empire. Their society was more like +that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier,--of a lewd tavern for +the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, bravoes, smugglers, +and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastic players, the +refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted +verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blasphemous songs +proper to the brutal and hardened course of life belonging to that sort +of wretches. This system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly +and moral society, and is in its neighborhood unsafe. If great bodies of +that kind were anywhere established in a bordering territory, we should +have a right to demand of their governments the suppression of such a +nuisance. What are we to do, if the government and the whole community +is of the same description? Yet that government has thought proper to +invite ours to lay by its unjust hatred, and to listen to the voice of +humanity as taught by their example. + +The operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to +have recourse to the true ones. In the intercourse between nations, we +are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much +weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not act much +more wisely, when we trust to the interests of men as guaranties of +their engagements. The interests frequently tear to pieces the +engagements, and the passions trample upon both. Entirely to trust to +either is to disregard our own safety, or not to know mankind. Men are +not tied to one another by papers and seals. They are led to associate +by resemblances, by conformities, by sympathies. It is with nations as +with individuals. Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between nation and +nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. +They have more than the force of treaties in themselves. They are +obligations written in the heart. They approximate men to men without +their knowledge, and sometimes against their intentions. The secret, +unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse holds them +together, even when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to +equivocate, scuffle, and fight about the terms of their written +obligations. + +As to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence, it is the sole +means of justice amongst nations. Nothing can banish it from the world. +They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon +themselves. But it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to +mitigate those evils which we are unable to remove. The conformity and +analogy of which I speak, incapable, like everything else, of preserving +perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to +facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the +rancor of their quarrels. With this similitude, peace is more of peace, +and war is less of war. I will go further. There have been periods of +time in which communities apparently in peace with each other have been +more perfectly separated than in later times many nations in Europe have +been in the course of long and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in +the similitude throughout Europe of religion, laws, and manners. At +bottom, these are all the same. The writers on public law have often +called this _aggregate_ of nations a commonwealth. They had reason. It +is virtually one great state, having the same basis of general law, with +some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments. The +nations of Europe have had the very same Christian religion, agreeing in +the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the +subordinate doctrines. The whole of the polity and economy of every +country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn +from the old Germanic or Gothic Custumary,--from the feudal +institutions, which must be considered as an emanation from that +Custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and +discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with +or without a monarch, (which are called States,) in every European +country; the strong traces of which, where monarchy predominated, were +never wholly extinguished or merged in despotism. In the few places +where monarchy was cast off, the spirit of European monarchy was still +left. Those countries still continued countries of States,--that is, of +classes, orders, and distinctions, such as had before subsisted, or +nearly so. Indeed, the force and form of the institution called States +continued in greater perfection in those republican communities than +under monarchies. From all those sources arose a system of manners and +of education which was nearly similar in all this quarter of the +globe,--and which softened, blended, and harmonized the colors of the +whole. There was little difference in the form of the universities for +the education of their youth, whether with regard to faculties, to +sciences, or to the more liberal and elegant kinds of erudition. From +this resemblance in the modes of intercourse, and in the whole form and +fashion of life, no citizen of Europe could be altogether an exile in +any part of it. There was nothing more than a pleasing variety to +recreate and instruct the mind, to enrich the imagination, and to +meliorate the heart. When a man travelled or resided, for health, +pleasure, business, or necessity, from his own country, he never felt +himself quite abroad. + +The whole body of this new scheme of manners, in support of the new +scheme of polities, I consider as a strong and decisive proof of +determined ambition and systematic hostility. I defy the most refining +ingenuity to invent any other cause for the total departure of the +Jacobin Republic from every one of the ideas and usages, religious, +legal, moral, or social, of this civilized world, and for her tearing +herself from its communion with such studied violence, but from a formed +resolution of keeping no terms with that world. It has not been, as has +been falsely and insidiously represented, that these miscreants had only +broke with their old government. They made a schism with the whole +universe, and that schism extended to almost everything, great and +small. For one, I wish, since it is gone thus far, that the breach had +been so complete as to make all intercourse impracticable: but, partly +by accident, partly by design, partly from the resistance of the matter, +enough is left to preserve intercourse, whilst amity is destroyed or +corrupted in its principle. + +This violent breach of the community of Europe we must conclude to have +been made (even if they had not expressly declared it over and over +again) either to force mankind into an adoption of their system or to +live in perpetual enmity with a community the most potent we have ever +known. Can any person imagine, that, in offering to mankind this +desperate alternative, there is no indication of a hostile mind, because +men in possession of the ruling authority are supposed to have a right +to act without coercion in their own territories? As to the right of +men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, +no such right exists. Men are never in a state of _total_ independence +of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it +conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action +without its having some effect upon others, or, of course, without +producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The +_situations_ in which men relatively stand produce the rules and +principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in +exacting it. + +Distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men; +but it often renders their exercise impracticable. The same circumstance +of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system in any +community less pernicious. But there are situations where this +difficulty does not occur, and in which, therefore, those duties are +obligatory and these rights are to be asserted. It has ever been the +method of public jurists to draw a great part of the analogies on which +they form the law of nations from the principles of law which prevail in +civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely positive. Those +which are rather conclusions of legal reason than matters of statutable +provision belong to universal equity, and are universally applicable. +Almost the whole prætorian law is such. There is a _law of neighborhood_ +which does not leave a man perfect master on his own ground. When a +neighbor sees a _new erection_, in the nature of a nuisance, set up at +his door, he has a right to represent it to the judge, who, on his part, +has a right to order the work to be stayed, or, if established, to be +removed. On this head the parent law is express and clear, and has made +many wise provisions, which, without destroying, regulate and restrain +the right of _ownership_ by the right of _vicinage_. No _innovation_ is +permitted that may redound, even secondarily, to the prejudice of a +neighbor. The whole doctrine of that important head of prætorian law, +"_De novi operis nunciatione_," is founded on the principle, that no +_new_ use should be made of a man's private liberty of operating upon +his private property, from whence a detriment may be justly apprehended +by his neighbor. This law of denunciation is prospective. It is to +anticipate what is called _damnum infectum_ or _damnum nondum factum_, +that is, a damage justly apprehended, but not actually done. Even before +it is clearly known whether the innovation be damageable or not, the +judge is competent to issue a prohibition to innovate until the point +can be determined. This prompt interference is grounded on principles +favorable to both parties. It is preventive of mischief difficult to be +repaired, and of ill blood difficult to be softened. The rule of law, +therefore, which comes before the evil is amongst the very best parts of +equity, and justifies the promptness of the remedy; because, as it is +well observed, "_Res damni infecti celeritatem desiderat, et periculosa +est dilatio_." This right of denunciation does not hold, when things +continue, however inconveniently to the neighborhood, according to the +_ancient_ mode. For there is a sort of presumption against novelty, +drawn out of a deep consideration of human nature and human affairs; and +the maxim of jurisprudence is well laid down, "_Vetustas pro lege semper +habetur_." + +Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there is no constituted +judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself +is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assertor of its own +rights, or, remedially, their avenger. Neighbors are presumed to take +cognizance of each other's acts. "_Vicini vicinorum facta præsumuntur +seire_." This principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations as +of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of Europe a duty +to know and a right to prevent any capital innovation which may amount +to the erection of a dangerous nuisance.[32] Of the importance of that +innovation, and the mischief of that nuisance, they are, to be sure, +bound to judge not litigiously: but it is in their competence to judge. +They have uniformly acted on this right. What in civil society is a +ground of action in politic society is a ground of war. But the exercise +of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence. As suits +in civil society, so war in the political, must ever be a matter of +great deliberation. It is not this or that particular proceeding, picked +out here and there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There must be +an aggregate of mischief. There must be marks of deliberation; there +must be traces of design; there must be indications of malice; there +must be tokens of ambition. There must be force in the body where they +exist; there must be energy in the mind. When all these circumstances +combine, or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicinity calls +for the exercise of its competence: and the rules of prudence do not +restrain, but demand it. + +In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory, by +the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar for +such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers as never infested the world, +I am so far from aggravating, that I have fallen infinitely short of the +evil. No man who has attended to the particulars of what has been done +in France, and combined them with the principles there asserted, can +possibly doubt it. When I compare with this great cause of nations the +trifling points of honor, the still more contemptible points of +interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes +about precedency, the lowering or the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in +a hundred or two of wildcat-skins on the other side of the globe, which +have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand +astonished at those persons who do not feel a resentment, not more +natural than politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous +compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and who are not alarmed +with what it threatens to their safety. + +I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with our declaration at +Whitehall in the beginning of this war, that the vicinage of Europe had +not only a right, but an indispensable duty and an exigent interest, to +denunciate this new work, before it had produced the danger we have so +sorely felt, and which we shall long feel. The example of what is done +by France is too important not to have a vast and extensive influence; +and that example, backed with its power, must bear with great force on +those who are near it, especially on those who shall recognize the +pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not +an old structure, which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute +of the original end and design with which it had been so fashioned. It +is a recent wrong, and can plead no prescription. It violates the rights +upon which not only the community of France, but those on which all +communities are founded. The principles on which they proceed are +_general_ principles, and are as true in England as in any other +country. They who (though with the purest intentions) recognize the +authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle justify their +acts, and establish them as precedents. It is a question not between +France and England; it is a question between property and force. The +property claims; and its claim has been allowed. The property of the +nation is the nation. They who massacre, plunder, and expel the body of +the proprietary are murderers and robbers. The state, in its essence, +must be moral and just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper +should be accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be +lamented: but this notwithstanding, the body of the commonwealth may +remain in all its integrity and be perfectly sound in its composition. +The present case is different. It is not a revolution in government. It +is not the victory of party over party. It is a destruction and +decomposition of the whole society; which never can be made of right by +any faction, however powerful, nor without terrible consequences to all +about it, both in the act and in the example. This pretended republic is +founded in crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and +robbery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at +peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it. + +Mere locality does not constitute a body politic. Had Cade and his gang +got possession of London, they would not have been the lord mayor, +aldermen, and common council. The body politic of France existed in the +majesty of its throne, in the dignity of its nobility, in the honor of +its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its +magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed property +in the several bailliages, in the respect due to its movable substance +represented by the corporations of the kingdom. All these particular +_molecules_ united form the great mass of what is truly the body politic +in all countries. They are so many deposits and receptacles of justice; +because they can only exist by justice. Nation is a moral essence, not a +geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator. France, +though out of her territorial possession, exists; because the sole +possible claimant, I mean the proprietary, and the government to which +the proprietary adheres, exists and claims. God forbid, that if you were +expelled from your house by ruffians and assassins, that I should call +the material walls, doors, and windows of ---- the ancient and honorable +family of ----! Am I to transfer to the intruders, who, not content to +turn you out naked to the world, would rob you of your very name, all +the esteem and respect I owe to you? The Regicides in France are not +France. France is out of her bounds, but the kingdom is the same. + +To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let us suppose a case, which, +after what has happened, we cannot think absolutely impossible, though +the augury is to be abominated, and the event deprecated with our most +ardent prayers. Let us suppose, then, that our gracious sovereign was +sacrilegiously murdered; his exemplary queen, at the head of the +matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner; that those +princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the ornaments of the +country, and who are the leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth of +their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious death, with hundreds of +others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the first distinction; that the +Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, princes the hope and pride of the +nation, with all their brethren, were forced to fly from the knives of +assassins; that the whole body of our excellent clergy were either +massacred or robbed of all and transported; the Christian religion, in +all its denominations, forbidden and persecuted; the law totally, +fundamentally, and in all its parts, destroyed; the judges put to death +by revolutionary tribunals; the peers and commons robbed to the last +acre of their estates, massacred, if they stayed, or obliged to seek +life in flight, in exile, and in beggary; that the whole landed property +should share the very same fate; that every military and naval officer +of honor and rank, almost to a man, should be placed in the same +description of confiscation and exile; that the principal merchants and +bankers should be drawn out, as from an hen-coop, for slaughter; that +the citizens of our greatest and most flourishing cities, when the hand +and the machinery of the hangman were not found sufficient, should have +been collected in the public squares and massacred by thousands with +cannon; if three hundred thousand others should have been doomed to a +situation worse than death in noisome and pestilential prisons. In such +a case, is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? +Would this be the England that you and I, and even strangers, admired, +honored, loved, and cherished? Would not the exiles of England alone be +my government and my fellow-citizens? Would not their places of refuge +be my temporary country? Would not all my duties and all my affections +be there, and there only? Should I consider myself as a traitor to my +country, and deserving of death, if I knocked at the door and heart of +every potentate in Christendom to succor my friends, and to avenge them +on their enemies? Could I in any way show myself more a patriot? What +should I think of those potentates who insulted their suffering +brethren,--who treated them as vagrants, or at least as mendicants,--and +could find no allies, no friends, but in regicide murderers and robbers? +What ought I to think and feel, if, being geographers instead of kings, +they recognized the desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers +polluted with blood, of this geometrical measurement, as the honorable +member of Europe called England? In that condition, what should we think +of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power afforded us a churlish +and treacherous hospitality, if they should invite us to join the +standard of our king, our laws, and our religion,--if they should give +us a direct promise of protection,--if, after all this, taking advantage +of our deplorable situation, which left us no choice, they were to treat +us as the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries,--if they were to send us +far from the aid of our king and our suffering country, to squander us +away in the most pestilential climates for a venal enlargement of their +own territories, for the purpose of trucking them, when obtained, with +those very robbers and murderers they had called upon us to oppose with +our blood? What would be our sentiments, if in that miserable service we +were not to be considered either as English, or as Swedes, Dutch, Danes, +but as outcasts of the human race? Whilst we were fighting those battles +of their interest and as their soldiers, how should we feel, if we were +to be excluded from all their cartels? How must we feel, if the pride +and flower of the English nobility and gentry, who might escape the +pestilential clime and the devouring sword, should, if taken prisoners, +be delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned as rebels, as +traitors, as the vilest of all criminals, by tribunals formed of Maroon +negro slaves, covered over with the blood of their masters, who were +made free and organized into judges for their robberies and murders? +What should we feel under this inhuman, insulting, and barbarous +protection of Muscovites, Swedes, or Hollanders? Should we not obtest +Heaven, and whatever justice there is yet on earth? Oppression makes +wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which +is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the voice of sacred +misery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of +prophecy and inspiration. In that bitterness of soul, in that +indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would +not persecuted English loyalty cry out with an awful warning voice, and +denounce the destruction that waits on monarchs who consider fidelity +to them as the most degrading of all vices, who suffer it to be punished +as the most abominable of all crimes, and who have no respect but for +rebels, traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose crimes have +broke their chains? Would not this warm language of high indignation +have more of sound reason in it, more of real affection, more of true +attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers who would hush monarchs +to sleep in the arms of death? Let them be well convinced, that, if ever +this example should prevail in its whole extent, it will have its full +operation. Whilst kings stand firm on their base, though under that base +there is a sure-wrought mine, there will not be wanting to their levees +a single person of those who are attached to their fortune, and not to +their persons or cause; but hereafter none will support a tottering +throne. Some will fly for fear of being crushed under the ruin; some +will join in making it. They will seek, in the destruction of royalty, +fame and power and wealth and the homage of kings, with Reubell, with +Carnot, with Révellière, and with the Merlins and the Talliens, rather +than suffer exile and beggary with the Condés, or the Broglies, the +Castries, the D'Avarays, the Sérents, the Cazalès, and the long line of +loyal, suffering, patriot nobility, or to be butchered with the oracles +and the victims of the laws, the D'Ormessons, the D'Esprémesnils, and +the Malesherbes. This example we shall give, if, instead of adhering to +our fellows in a cause which is an honor to us all, we abandon the +lawful government and lawful corporate body of France, to hunt for a +shameful and ruinous fraternity with this odious usurpation that +disgraces civilized society and the human race. + +And is, then, example nothing? It is everything. Example is the school +of mankind, and they will learn at no other. This war is a war against +that example. It is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or even for the +property, virtue, fidelity of France. It is a war for George the Third, +for Francis the Second, and for all the dignity, property, honor, +virtue, and religion of England, of Germany, and of all nations. + +I know that all I have said of the systematic unsociability of this +new-invented species of republic, and the impossibility of preserving +peace, is answered by asserting that the scheme of manners, morals, and +even of maxims and principles of state, is of no weight in a question of +peace or war between communities. This doctrine is supported by example. +The case of Algiers is cited, with an hint, as if it were the stronger +case. I should take no notice of this sort of inducement, if I had found +it only where first it was. I do not want respect for those from whom I +first heard it; but, having no controversy at present with them, I only +think it not amiss to rest on it a little, as I find it adopted, with +much more of the same kind, by several of those on whom such reasoning +had formerly made no apparent impression. If it had no force to prevent +us from submitting to this necessary war, it furnishes no better ground +for our making an unnecessary and ruinous peace. + +This analogical argument drawn from the case of Algiers would lead us a +good way. The fact is, we ourselves with a little cover, others more +directly, pay a _tribute_ to the Republic of Algiers. Is it meant to +reconcile us to the payment of a _tribute_ to the French Republic? That +this, with other things more ruinous, will be demanded, hereafter, I +little doubt; but for the present this will not be avowed,--though our +minds are to be gradually prepared for it. In truth, the arguments from +this case are worth little, even to those who approve the buying an +Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many things which men do not +approve, that they must do to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence +that they are to act in the same manner in all cases is turning +necessity into a law. Upon what is matter of prudence, the argument +concludes the contrary way. Because we have done one humiliating act, we +ought with infinite caution to admit more acts of the same nature, lest +humiliation should become our habitual state. Matters of prudence are +under the dominion of circumstances, and not of logical analogies. It is +absurd to take it otherwise. + +I, for one, do more than doubt the policy of this kind of convention +with Algiers. On those who think as I do the argument _ad hominem_ can +make no sort of impression. I know something of the constitution and +composition of this very extraordinary republic. It has a constitution, +I admit, similar to the present tumultuous military tyranny of France, +by which an handful of obscure ruffians domineer over a fertile country +and a brave people. For the composition, too, I admit the Algerine +community resembles that of France,--being formed out of the very scum, +scandal, disgrace, and pest of the Turkish Asia. The Grand Seignior, to +disburden the country, suffers the Dey to recruit in his dominions the +corps of janizaries, or asaphs, which form the Directory and Council of +Elders of the African Republic one and indivisible. But notwithstanding +this resemblance, which I allow, I never shall so far injure the +Janizarian Republic of Algiers as to put it in comparison, for every +sort of crime, turpitude, and oppression, with the Jacobin Republic of +Paris. There is no question with me to which of the two I should choose +to be a neighbor or a subject. But. situated as I am, I am in no danger +of becoming to Algiers either the one or the other. It is not so in my +relation to the atheistical fanatics of France. I _am_ their neighbor; I +_may_ become their subject. Have the gentlemen who borrowed this happy +parallel no idea of the different conduct to be held with regard to the +very same evil at an immense distance and when it is at your door? when +its power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble as its +distance is remote? when there is a barrier of language and usages, +which prevents corruption through certain old correspondences and +habitudes, from the contagion of the horrible novelties that are +introduced into everything else? I can contemplate without dread a royal +or a national tiger on the borders of Pegu. I can look at him with an +easy curiosity, as prisoner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. +But if, by _Habeas Corpus_, or otherwise, he was to come into the lobby +of the House of Commons whilst your door was open, any of you would be +more stout than wise who would not gladly make your escape out of the +back windows. I certainly should dread more from a wild-cat in my +bedchamber than from all the lions that roar in the deserts behind +Algiers. But in this parallel it is the cat that is at a distance, and +the lions and tigers that are in our antechambers and our lobbies. +Algiers is not near; Algiers is not powerful; Algiers is not our +neighbor; Algiers is not infectious. Algiers, whatever it may be, is an +old creation; and we have good data to calculate all the mischief to be +apprehended from it. When I find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will +tell you what I think of that point. In the mean time, the case quoted +from the Algerine Reports will not apply as authority. We shall put it +out of court; and so far as that goes, let the counsel for the Jacobin +peace take nothing by their motion. + +When we voted, as you and I did, with many more whom you and I respect +and love, to resist this enemy, we were providing for dangers that were +direct, home, pressing, and not remote, contingent, uncertain, and +formed upon loose analogies. We judged of the danger with which we were +menaced by Jacobin France from the whole tenor of her conduct, not from +one or two doubtful or detached acts or expressions. I not only +concurred in the idea of combining with Europe in this war, but to the +best of my power even stimulated ministers to that conjunction of +interests and of efforts. I joined them with all my soul, on the +principles contained in that manly and masterly state-paper which I have +two or three times referred to,[33] and may still more frequently +hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with +this piece. The historic facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus +painters write their names at Co." + +Various persons may concur in the same measure on various grounds. They +may be various, without being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I +thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the Regicide upon our +ally of Holland a good ground of war. I think his manifest attempt to +overturn the balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good ground +of war I consider his declaration of war on his Majesty and his kingdom. +But though I have taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing +more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. +Long before their acts of aggression and their declaration of war, the +faction in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body of principles +and maxims, and had regularly and systematically acted on them, by which +she virtually had put herself in a posture which was in itself a +declaration of war against mankind. + +It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of +the people are tumultuous for peace, and that ministers pretend +negotiation to amuse us. This they have learned from the language of +many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of +whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But I, who +think the ministers unfortunately to be but too serious in their +proceedings, find myself obliged to say a little more on this subject of +the popular opinion. + +Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves, it is proper, that, +from our serious deliberation, they may be worth quoting. It is without +reason we praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the +discretion of the crown the awful trust of war and peace, if the +ministers of the crown virtually return it again into our hands. The +trust was placed there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular +rashness in plunging into wars, and against the effects of popular +dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in getting out of them as imprudently as +we might first engage in them. To have no other measure in judging of +those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw +us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution +was formed to avoid. + +It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our desire takes a measure +contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. He who does not stay the +hand of suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that to be +instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved. Information is an +advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. He that is bound to +act in the dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears evident to +our governors that our desires and our interests are at variance, they +ought not to gratify the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen +are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we +can possibly command. They have a whole before them, which we can +contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary +relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers, but our natural +guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty +force; but reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may fairly say, +irresistible. + +I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the +disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case +silence is manly, and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the +principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I take the +distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part +of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of +policy, on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to +be concealed. They who have not the whole cause before them, call them +politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges. +The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side, ought to be +presented. This ought to be done; and it is all that can be done. When +we have our true situation distinctly presented to us, if then we +resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist the admonitions +of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the hands of our potent and +irreconcilable foes, then, and not till then, the ministers stand +acquitted before God and man for whatever may come. + +Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had so full and free a +discussion as it requires, I mean to omit none of the points which seem +to me necessary for consideration, previous to an arrangement which is +forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe. In the course, +therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose +the following questions to your serious thoughts.--1. Whether the +present system, which stands for a government, in France, be such as in +peace and war affects the neighboring states in a manner different from +the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country?--2. +Whether that system, supposing its views hostile to other nations, +possesses any means of being hurtful to them peculiar to itself?--3. +Whether there has been lately such a change in France as to alter the +nature of its system, or its effect upon other powers?--4. Whether any +public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied +powers, which stand in the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the +right and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in France?--5. What +the state of the other powers of Europe will be with respect to each +other and their colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace?--6. +Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of making that kind of +peace? + +These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the application of the +several matters of fact and topics of argument, that occur in this vast +discussion, to certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine myself +to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner +as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings +and relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of my letter; but +before I have done, let me say one word in apology for myself. + +In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man +living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of +my oldest friends (and I wish I could say it of more of them) make a +part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain +explore." In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on the +public than the exclusion of one of them. But I drive away that, with +other melancholy thoughts. A great deal ought to be said upon that +subject, or nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom my friends +who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred ought +to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they have +them all. They have administered to me the only consolation I am capable +of receiving, which is, to know that no individual will suffer by my +thirty years' service to the public. If things should give us the +comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall be found, I was going to +say fighting, (that would be foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. +Pitt. I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system +can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the +man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is +the man to repair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is only +when they appear to me to have no resemblance to acts of his. But let +him not have a confidence in himself which no human abilities can +warrant. His abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for any +man) to those which are opposed to him. But if we look to him as our +security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured +that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will +not agree. With a Regicide peace the king cannot long have a minister to +serve him, nor the minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in +reward of the royal and the private virtues of our sovereign, should +call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of +amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same +Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and +not, as I conceive, on light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning +sovereign, nor any minister he has or can have, nor his successor +apparent, nor any of those who may be called to serve him, with what +appears to me a false state of their situation. We cannot have them and +that peace together. + +I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between +several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at +the head of ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am +sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a +Jacobin existence in France. At one time he and all Europe seemed to +feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so +many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this +year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot +move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is preparing for us +the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden era, or the +commencement of some new era that must be denominated from some new +metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with +freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as +in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is +a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he +may speak it the longer. But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, +what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before +you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity, +calculate on six months of life. What I say I _must_ say at once. +Whatever I write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the +weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few +days I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene +of the world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for everything +that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action. If the +rawest tyro in politics has been influenced by the authority of my gray +hairs, and led by anything in my speeches or my writings to enter into +this war, he has a right to call upon me to know why I have changed my +opinions, or why, when those I voted with have adopted better notions, I +persevere in exploded error. + +When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those I respect in every +degree short of superstition, I am obliged to give my reasons fully. I +cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is +not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the +same parallel. That reason is an _amicus curiæ_ who speaks _de plano_, +not _pro tribunali_. It is a friend who makes an useful suggestion to +the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges +its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I +have chalked out in my letters that follow this. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] "Mussabat tacito medicina timore." + +[23] Mr. Bird, sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul. + +[24] Boissy d'Anglas. + +[25] "This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of +that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains, and +the manner of announcing them, are remote from any disposition for +peace. + +"The inadmissible pretension is there avowed of appropriating to France +all that the laws actually existing there may have comprised under the +denomination of French territory. To a demand such as this is added an +express declaration that no proposal contrary to it will be made or even +listened to: and this, under the pretence of an internal regulation, the +provisions of which are wholly foreign to all other nations. + +"While these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the +king but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary. + +"Whenever his enemies shall manifest more pacific sentiments, his +Majesty will at all times be eager to concur in them, by lending +himself, in concert with his allies, to all such measures as shall be +best calculated to reëstablish general tranquillity on conditions just, +honorable, and permanent: either by the establishment of a congress, +which has been so often and so happily the means of restoring peace to +Europe; or by a preliminary discussion of the principles which may be +proposed, on either side, as a foundation of a general pacification; or, +lastly, by an impartial examination of any other way which may be +pointed out to him for arriving at the same salutary end. + +"_Downing Street, April 10th_, 1796." + +[26] _Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the +Country_. + + "EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY. + + "Different journals have advanced that an English + plenipotentiary had reached Paris, and had presented himself to + the Executive Directory, but that, his propositions not having + appeared satisfactory, he had received orders instantly to quit + France. + + "All these assertions are equally false. + + "The notices given in the English papers of a minister having + been sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to + recollection the overtures of Mr. Wickham to the ambassador of + the Republic at Basle, and the rumors circulated relative to the + mission of Mr. Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The + _insignificance_, or rather the _subtle duplicity_, the PUNIC + _style_ of Mr. Wickham's note, is not forgotten. According to + the partisans of the English ministry, it was to Paris that Mr. + Hammond was to come to speak for peace. When his destination + became public, and it was known that he went to Prussia, the + same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and not + withstanding the object, now well known, of this negotiation was + to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republic, and + to return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to + its engagements, repulsed these _perfidious_ propositions. But + in converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the + English ministry joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to + France _that of justifying the continuance of the war in the + eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it + on the French, government_. Such was also the aim of Mr. + Wickham's note. _Such is still, that of the notices given at + this time in the English papers_. + + This aim will appear evident, if we reflect how difficult it is + that the ambitious government of England should sincerely wish + for a, peace that would _snatch from it its maritime + preponderancy, would reëstablish the freedom of the seas, would + give a new impulse to the Spanish, Dutch, and French marines_, + and would carry to the highest degree of prosperity the industry + and commerce of those nations in, which it has always found + _rivals_, and which it has considered as _enemies_ of its + commerce, when they were tired of being its _dupes_. + + "_But there will no longer be any credit given to the pacific + intentions of the English ministry when it is known that its + gold and its intrigues, its open practices and its insinuations, + besiege more than ever the Cabinet of Vienna, and are one of the + principal obstacles to the negotiation which, that Cabinet would + of itself be induced to enter on for peace_. + + "They will no longer _be credited_, finally, when the moment of + the rumor of these overtures being circulated is considered. + _The English nation supports impatiently the continuance of the + war; a reply must be made to its complaints, its reproaches_: + the Parliament is about to reopen, its sittings; the mouths of + the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut, the + demand of new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these + results, it is necessary to be enabled to advance, that the + French government refuses every reasonable proposition of + peace." + + + +[27] "In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public +order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without +number,--by arbitrary imprisonments,--by massacres which cannot be +remembered without horror,--and at length by the execrable murder of a +just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who +with, an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her royal +consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious +death."--"They [the Allies] have had to encounter acts of aggression +without pretext, open violations of all treaties, unprovoked +declarations of war,--in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or +violence could effect, for the purpose, so openly avowed, of subverting +all the institutions of society, and of extending' over all the nations +of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France. This +state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the +surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the right, +without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil +which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all +property, and which attacks the Fundamental principles by which mankind +is united in the bonds of civil society."--"The king would propose none +other than equitable and moderate conditions: not such as the expenses, +the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his +Majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, +with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own +security and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His Majesty desires +nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain +endeavored to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced +by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and +the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in +misery and disgraced all civilized nations."--"The king promises on his +part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the +course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose) +security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical +government, shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary anarchy: of that +anarchy which, has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, +dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, +confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the +most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all +possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of the +people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces +for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their _lawful +sovereign_." + + Declaration sent by his Majesty's command to the commanders of + his Majesty's fleets and armies employed against France and to + his Majesty's ministers employed at foreign courts. _Whitehall, + Oct_. 29, 1793 + + + +[28] "Ut lethargicus hic, cum fit pugil, et medicum urget."--HOB. + +[29] See the Declaration. + +[30] See Declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793. + +[31] Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this +principle, as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous +articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they +should enter. "La Convention Nationale, après avoir entendu le rapport +de ses comités de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques réunis, +fidèle au _principe de souveraineté de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas de +reconnaître aucune institution qui y porte atteinte_" &c., &c.--_Décree +sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1702_. And see the subsequent +proclamation. + +[32] "This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all +the surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the +right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of +an evil which ... attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is +united in the bonds of civil society."--_Declaration 29th Oct., 1793_. + +[33] Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793. + + + + +LETTER II. + +ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER +NATIONS. + + +My dear Sir,--I closed my first letter with serious matter, and I hope +it has employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference +to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recall +your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not +taught me to vary. + +My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter France, +not as a state, but as a faction. The vast territorial extent of that +country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches of +commerce and convention, the whole aggregate mass of what in ordinary +cases constitutes the force of a state, to me were but objects of +secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been +often more than balanced. Great as these things are, they are not what +make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly +dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of +France,--that informs it as a soul,--that stamps upon its ambition, and +upon all its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly +distinguishes them from the same general passions and the same general +views in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which +inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity. +Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to +shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold. +A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the +conflict with this new and unheard-of power, proceed as if they were +engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former contests, or +that they can make peace in the spirit of their former arrangements of +pacification. Here the beaten path is the very reverse of the safe road. + +As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this disorder was not in +its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could +not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that our +first struggle with this evil would also be our last. I never thought we +could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an +object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself +that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not +with its conduct, but with its existence,--convinced that its existence +and its hostility were the same. + +The faction is not local or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it +least appears in action, it is still full of life. In its sleep it +recruits its strength and prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in +the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains +it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders +of men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head. The +centre is there. The circumference is the world of Europe, wherever the +race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is militant; +in France it is triumphant. In France is the bank of deposit and the +bank of circulation of all the pernicious principles that are forming in +every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too +mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other +country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause +of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at +least, to the Christian world. + +The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was by most of the +Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner +declared. In the joint manifesto published by the Emperor and the King +of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest +terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to +them, of classing those monarchs with the first benefactors of mankind. +This manifesto was published, as they themselves express it, "to lay +open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, +their intentions, and the _disinterestedness_ of their personal views: +taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order +amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to _each_ state its +religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real +constitution."--"On this ground they hoped that all empires and all +states would be unanimous, and, becoming the firm guardians of the +happiness of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their efforts to +rescue a numerous nation from its own fury, to preserve Europe from the +return of barbarism, and the universe from the subversion and anarchy +with which it was threatened." The whole of that noble performance ought +to be read at the first meeting of any congress which may assemble for +the purpose of pacification. In that piece "these powers expressly +renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and confine themselves +to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and +politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation, +and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede, +as a part of the commonwealth of Europe. To these principles, with some +trifling exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede.[34] And all +our friends who took office acceded to the ministry, (whether wisely or +not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the +principles of that declaration. + +As long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force +would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations; but +when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new +direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be +purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is +a truth that cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the +distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw +the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives +to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for its +objects, it was a _civil war_; and as such they pursued it. It is a war +between the partisans of the ancient civil, moral, and political order +of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means +to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign empire over +other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning +with the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured _the +centre of Europe_; and that secured, they knew, that, whatever might be +the event of battles and sieges, their _cause_ was victorious. Whether +its territory had a little more or a little less peeled from its +surface, or whether an island or two was detached from its commerce, to +them was of little moment. The conquest of France was a glorious +acquisition. That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities +never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and +dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries. + +They saw it was _a civil war_. It was their business to persuade their +adversaries that it ought to be a _foreign_ war. The Jacobins everywhere +set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with effect in +the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in Europe. Their +task was not difficult. The condition of princes, and sometimes of first +ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk and the +creatures of favor had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes. +They promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues from whence +emoluments might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of +vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so +vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their +habit. They are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended +only by conscience and glory. A large, liberal, and prospective view of +the interests of states passes with them for romance, and the principles +that recommend it for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The +calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons +shame them out of everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object +and in means to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is +nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can +measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten fingers. + +Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps without any principles +at all, they played the game of that faction. There was a beaten road +before them. The powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared +dangerous; the war was easily diverted from France as a faction to +France as a state. The princes were easily taught to slide back into +their old, habitual course of politics. They were easily led to consider +the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their +own buildings, (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a +contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion for +pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their +neighbor's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious +hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the +principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or they +flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new +fortresses and new territories a _defensive_ security. But the security +wanted was against a kind of power which was not so truly dangerous in +its fortresses nor in its territories as in its spirit and its +principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at _defending_ themselves +against a danger from which there can be no security in any _defensive_ +plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis +the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy +people. + +This error obliged them, even in their offensive operations, to adopt a +plan of war against the success of which there was something little +short of mathematical demonstration. They refused to take any step which +might strike at the heart of affairs. They seemed unwilling to wound the +enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole as if they really +wished the conservation of the Jacobin power, as what might be more +favorable than the lawful government to the attainment of the petty +objects they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the +wider and remoter the circle was, the more eagerly they chose it as +their sphere of action in this centrifugal war. The plan they pursued in +its nature demanded great length of time. In its execution, they who +went the nearest way to work were obliged to cover an incredible extent +of country. It left to the enemy every means of destroying this extended +line of weakness. Ill success in any part was sure to defeat the effect +of the whole. This is true of Austria. It is still more true of England. +On this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, +put him but the further off from his object. + +As long as there was any appearance of success, the spirit of +aggrandizement, and consequently the spirit of mutual jealousy, seized +upon all the coalesced powers. Some sought an accession of territory at +the expense of France, some at the expense of each other, some at the +expense of third parties; and when the vicissitude of disaster took its +turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith and +friendship. + +The greatest skill, conducting the greatest military apparatus, has +been employed; but it has been worse than uselessly employed, through +the false policy of the war. The operations of the field suffered by the +errors of the cabinet. If the same spirit continues, when peace is made, +the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it +will be made upon the same false principle. What has been lost in the +field, in the field may be regained. An arrangement of peace in its +nature is a permanent settlement: it is the effect of counsel and +deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a basis +fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those +unforeseen dispensations which the all-wise, but mysterious, Governor of +the world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from ruin. It would +not be pious error, but mad and impious presumption, for any one to +trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance of the rules of +prudence, which are formed upon the known march of the ordinary +providence of God. + +It was not of that sort of war that I was amongst the least +considerable, but amongst the most zealous advisers; and it is not by +the sort of peace now talked of that I wish it concluded. It would +answer no great purpose to enter into the particular errors of the war. +The whole has been but one error. It was but nominally a war of +alliance. As the combined powers pursued it, there was nothing to hold +an alliance together. There could be no tie of _honor_ in a society for +pillage. There could be no tie of a common _interest_, where the object +did not offer such a division amongst the parties as could well give +them a warm concern in the gains of each other, or could, indeed, form +such a body of equivalents as might make one of them willing to abandon +a separate object of his ambition for the gratification of any other +member of the alliance. The partition of Poland offered an object of +spoil in which the parties _might_ agree. They were circumjacent, and +each might take a portion convenient to his own territory. They might +dispute about the value of their several shares, but the contiguity to +each of the demandants always furnished the means of an adjustment. +Though hereafter the world will have cause to rue this iniquitous +measure, and they most who were most concerned in it, for the moment +there was wherewithal in the object to preserve peace amongst +confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did not afford the same +facilities for accommodation. What might satisfy the House of Austria in +a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the +King of Prussia. What might be desired by Great Britain in the West +Indies must be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt as an interest at +Vienna, and it would be felt as something worse than a negative interest +at Madrid. Austria, long possessed with unwise and dangerous designs on +Italy, could not be very much in earnest about the conservation of the +old patrimony of the House of Savoy; and Sardinia, who owed to an +Italian force all her means of shutting out France from Italy, of which +she has been supposed to hold the key, would not purchase the means of +strength upon one side by yielding it on the other: she would not +readily give the possession of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No +Continental power was willing to lose any of its Continental objects for +the increase of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Britain +would not give up any of the objects she sought for, as the means of an +increase to her naval power, to further their aggrandizement. + +The moment this war came to be considered as a war merely of profit, the +actual circumstances are such that it never could become really a war of +alliance. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things are put +upon their right bottom. + +I don't find it denied, that, when a treaty is entered into for peace, a +demand will be made on the Regicides to surrender a great part of their +conquests on the Continent. 'Will they, in the present state of the war, +make that surrender without an equivalent? This Continental cession must +of course be made in favor of that party in the alliance that has +suffered losses. That party has nothing to furnish towards an +equivalent. What equivalent, for instance, has Holland to offer, who has +lost her all? What equivalent can come from the Emperor, every part of +whose territories contiguous to France is already within the pale of the +Regicide dominion? What equivalent has Sardinia to offer for Savoy, and +for Nice,--I may say, for her whole being? What has she taken from the +faction of France? She has lost very near her all, and she has gained +nothing. What equivalent has Spain to give? Alas! she has already paid +for her own ransom the fund of equivalent,--and a dreadful equivalent it +is, to England and to herself. But I put Spain out of the question: she +is a province of the Jacobin empire, and she must make peace or war +according to the orders she receives from the Directory of Assassins. In +effect and substance, her crown is a fief of Regicide. + +Whence, then, can the compensation be demanded? Undoubtedly from that +power which alone has made some conquests. That power is England. Will +the Allies, then, give away their ancient patrimony, that England may +keep islands in the West Indies? They never can protract the war in good +earnest for that object; nor can they act in concert with us, in our +refusal to grant anything towards their redemption. In that case we are +thus situated: either we must give Europe, bound hand and foot, to +France, or we must quit the West Indies without any one object, great or +small, towards indemnity and security. I repeat it, without any +advantage whatever: because, supposing that our conquest could comprise +all that France ever possessed in the tropical America, it never can +amount in any fair estimation to a fair equivalent for Holland, for the +Austrian Netherlands, for the Lower Germany,--that is, for the whole +ancient kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of Regicide, +to say nothing of almost all Italy, under the same barbarous domination. +If we treat in the present situation of things, we have nothing in our +hands that can redeem Europe. Nor is the Emperor, as I have observed, +more rich in the fund of equivalents. + +If we look to our stock in the Eastern world, our most valuable and +systematic acquisitions are made in that quarter. Is it from France they +are made? France has but one or two contemptible factories, subsisting +by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support +them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the Cape of Good +Hope as the securing of a post of great moment; it does honor to those +who planned and to those who executed that enterprise; but I speak of it +always as comparatively good,--as good as anything can be in a scheme +of war that repels us from a centre, and employs all our forces where +nothing can be finally decisive. But giving, as I freely give, every +possible credit to these Eastern conquests, I ask one question:--On whom +are they made? It is evident, that, if we can keep our Eastern +conquests, we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense +of Holland, our _ally_,--of Holland, the immediate cause of the war, the +nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and not of the Republic which +it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatic +conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that +Holland is reduced) unable to retain them, and which will virtually +leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland +declines still more as a state. She loses so much carrying trade, and +that means of keeping up the small degree of naval power she holds: for +which policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she maintains the +Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In that case, resentment, faction, +and even necessity, will throw her more and more into the power of the +new, mischievous Republic. But on the probable state of Holland I shall +say more, when in this correspondence I come to talk over with you the +state in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe. + +So far as to the East Indies. + +As to the West Indies,--indeed, as to either, if we look for matter of +exchange in order to ransom Europe,--it is easy to show that we have +taken a terribly roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even if, for the +sake of holding conquests there, we should refuse to redeem Holland, +and the Austrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely +as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide ambassador governs at +Madrid,) will see with perfect satisfaction Great Britain sole mistress +of the isles. In truth, it appears to me, that, when we come to balance +our account, we shall find in the proposed peace only the pure, simple, +and unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We shall have the satisfaction of +knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared by the Allies for +support of the Regicide system. We shall reflect at leisure on one great +truth: that it was ten times more easy totally to destroy the system +itself than, when established, it would be to reduce its power,--and +that this republic, most formidable abroad, was of all things the +weakest at home; that her frontier was terrible, her interior feeble; +that it was matter of choice to attack her where she is invincible, and +to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal +disorders. We shall reflect that our plan was good neither for offence +nor defence. + +It would not be at all difficult to prove that an army of an hundred +thousand men, horse, foot, and artillery, might have been employed +against the enemy, on the very soil which he has usurped, at a far less +expense than has been squandered away upon tropical adventures. In these +adventures it was not an enemy we had to vanquish, but a cemetery to +conquer. In carrying on the war in the West Indies, the hostile sword is +merciful, the country in which we engage is the dreadful enemy. There +the European conqueror finds a cruel defeat in the very fruits of his +success. Every advantage is but a new demand on England for recruits to +the West Indian grave. In a West India war, the Regicides have for their +troops a race of fierce barbarians, to whom the poisoned air, in which +our youth inhale certain death, is salubrity and life. To them the +climate is the surest and most faithful of allies. + +Had we carried on the war on the side of France which looks towards the +Channel or the Atlantic, we should have attacked our enemy on his weak +and unarmed side. We should not have to reckon on the loss of a man who +did not fall in battle. We should have an ally in the heart of the +country, who to our hundred thousand would at one time have added eighty +thousand men at the least, and all animated by principle, by enthusiasm, +and by vengeance: motives which secured them to the cause in a very +different manner from some of those allies whom we subsidized with +millions. This ally, (or rather, this principal in the war,) by the +confession of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him than all +his other foes united. Warring there, we should have led our arms to the +capital of Wrong. Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) +of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the royalists, an +impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed +between the enemy and his naval power. We are probably the only nation +who have declined to act against an enemy when it might have been done +in his own country, and who, having an armed, a powerful, and a long +victorious ally in that country, declined all effectual coöperation, and +suffered him to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war in +France, every advantage that our allies might obtain would be doubled +in its effect. Disasters on the one side might have a fair chance of +being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the main of +our force to bear upon that quarter, all the operations of the British +and Imperial crowns would have been combined. The war would have had +system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But as the war has been +pursued, the operations of the two crowns have not the smallest degree +of mutual bearing or relation. + +Had acquisitions in the West Indies been our object, on success in +France, everything reasonable in those remote parts might be demanded +with decorum and justice and a sure effect. Well might we call for a +recompense in America for those services to which Europe owed its +safety. Having abandoned this obvious policy connected with principle, +we have seen the Regicide power taking the reverse course, and making +real conquests in the West Indies, to which all our dear-bought +advantages (if we could hold them) are mean and contemptible. The +noblest island within the tropics, worth all that we possess put +together, is by the vassal Spaniard delivered into her hands. The island +of Hispaniola (of which we have but one poor corner, by a slippery hold) +is perhaps equal to England in extent, and in fertility is far superior. +The part possessed by Spain of that great island, made for the seat and +centre of a tropical empire, was not improved, to be sure, as the French +division had been, before it was systematically destroyed by the +Cannibal Republic; but it is not only the far larger, but the far more +salubrious and more fertile part. + +It was delivered into the hands of the barbarians, without, as I can +find, any public reclamation on our part, not only in contravention to +one of the fundamental treaties that compose the public law of Europe, +but in defiance of the fundamental colonial policy of Spain herself. +This part of the Treaty of Utrecht was made for great general ends, +unquestionably; but whilst it provided for those general ends, it was in +affirmance of that particular policy. It was not to injure, but to save +Spain, by making a settlement of her estate which prohibited her to +alienate to France. It is her policy not to see the balance of West +Indian power overturned by France or by Great Britain. Whilst the +monarchies subsisted, this unprincipled cession was what the influence +of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon never dared to attempt on +the younger: but cannibal terror has been more powerful than family +influence. The Bourbon monarchy of Spain, is united to the Republic of +France by what may be truly called the ties of blood. + +By this measure the balance of power in the West Indies is totally +destroyed. It has followed the balance of power in Europe. It is not +alone what shall be left nominally to the Assassins that is theirs. +Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes +all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of +putting his feather to the ear of the Directory, to make it unclench the +fist, and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron +gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to +discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter +itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can +neither keep nor hold. No! It cannot even long make war, if the grand +bank and deposit of its force is at all in the West Indies. But here a +scene opens to my view too important to pass by, perhaps too critical to +touch. Is it possible that it should not present itself in all its +relations to a mind habituated to consider either war or peace on a +large scale or as one whole? + +Unfortunately, other ideas have prevailed. A remote, an expensive, a +murderous, and, in the end, an unproductive adventure, carried on upon +ideas of mercantile knight-errantry, without any of the generous +wildness of Quixotism, is considered as sound, solid sense; and a war in +a wholesome climate, a war at our door, a war directly on the enemy, a +war in the heart of his country, a war in concert with an internal ally, +and in combination with the external, is regarded as folly and romance. + +My dear friend, I hold it impossible that these considerations should +have escaped the statesmen on both sides of the water, and on both sides +of the House of Commons. How a question of peace can be discussed +without having them in view I cannot imagine. If you or others see a way +out of these difficulties, I am happy. I see, indeed, a fund from whence +equivalents will be proposed. I see it, but I cannot just now touch it. +It is a question of high moment. It opens another Iliad of woes to +Europe. + +Such is the time proposed for making _a common political peace_ to which +no one circumstance is propitious. As to the grand principle of the +peace, it is left, as if by common consent, wholly out of the question. + +Viewing things in this light, I have frequently sunk into a degree of +despondency and dejection hardly to be described; yet out of the +profoundest depths of this despair, an impulse which I have in vain +endeavored to resist has urged me to raise one feeble cry against this +unfortunate coalition which is formed at home, in order to make a +coalition with France, subversive of the whole ancient order of the +world. No disaster of war, no calamity of season, could ever strike me +with half the horror which I felt from what is introduced to us by this +junction of parties under the soothing name of peace. We are apt to +speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which +dubious wars terminate in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct +contrary. I am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at the +intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able with +deliberation to face the perils of Jacobin fraternity. + +This fraternity is, indeed, so terrible in its nature, and in its +manifest consequences, that there is no way of quieting our +apprehensions about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by +substituting for it, through a sort of periphrasis, something of an +ambiguous quality, and describing such a connection under the terms of +"_the usual relations of peace and amity_." By this means the proposed +fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties which imply no +change in the public law of Europe, and which do not upon system affect +the interior condition of nations. It is confounded with those +conventions in which matters of dispute among sovereign powers are +compromised by the taking off a duty more or less, by the surrender of a +frontier town or a disputed district on the one side or the other, by +pactions in which the pretensions of families are settled, (as by a +conveyancer making family substitutions and successions,) without any +alteration in the laws, manners, religion, privileges, and customs of +the cities or territories which are the subject of such arrangements. + +All this body of old conventions, composing the vast and voluminous +collection called the _Corps Diplomatique_, forms the code or statute +law, as the methodized reasonings of the great publicists and jurists +form the digest and jurisprudence, of the Christian world. In these +treasures are to be found the _usual_ relations of peace and amity in +civilized Europe; and there the relations of ancient France were to be +found amongst the rest. + +The present system in France is not the ancient France. It is not the +ancient France with ordinary ambition and ordinary means. It is not a +new power of an old kind. It is a new power of a new species. When such +a questionable shape is to be admitted for the first time into the +brotherhood of Christendom, it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity to +consider how far it is in its nature alliable with the rest, or whether +"the relations of peace and amity" with this new state are likely to be +of the same nature with the _usual_ relations of the states of Europe. + +The Revolution in France had the relation of France to other nations as +one of its principal objects. The changes made by that Revolution were +not the better to accommodate her to the old and usual relations, but to +produce new ones. The Revolution was made, not to make France free, but +to make her formidable,--not to make her a neighbor, but a +mistress,--not to make her more observant of laws, but to put her in a +condition to impose them. To make France truly formidable, it was +necessary that France should be new-modelled. They who have not +followed the train of the late proceedings have been led by deceitful +representations (which deceit made a part in the plan) to conceive that +this totally new model of a state, in which nothing escaped a change, +was made with a view to its internal relations only. + +In the Revolution of France, two sorts of men were principally concerned +in giving a character and determination to its pursuits: the +philosophers and the politicians. They took different ways, but they met +in the same end. + +The philosophers had one predominant object, which they pursued with a +fanatical fury,--that is, the utter extirpation of religion. To that +every question of empire was subordinate. They had rather domineer in a +parish of atheists than rule over a Christian world. Their temporal +ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytizing spirit, in which +they were not exceeded by Mahomet himself. + +They who have made but superficial studies in the natural history of the +human mind have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only +cause of enthusiastic zeal and sectarian propagation. But there is no +doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the +very same effect. The social nature of man impels him to propagate his +principles, as much as physical impulses urge him to propagate his kind. +The passions give zeal and vehemence. The understanding bestows design +and system. The whole man moves under the discipline of his opinions. +Religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm. When anything +concerning it becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be +indifferent to the mind. They who do not love religion hate it. The +rebels to God perfectly abhor the Author of their being. They hate Him +"with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and +with all their strength." He never presents Himself to their thoughts, +but to menace and alarm them. They cannot strike the sun out of heaven, +but they are able to raise a smouldering smoke that obscures him from +their own eyes. Not being able to revenge themselves on God, they have a +delight in vicariously defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in +pieces His image in man. Let no one judge of them by what he has +conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no lead. +They were then only passengers in a common vehicle. They were then +carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and, +without being aware of it, partook of its influence. In that situation, +at worst, their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. +They despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions: +they considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. But +when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation presented +themselves, and that the ambition which before had so often made them +hypocrites might rather gain than lose by a daring avowal of their +sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit, which has "evil for +its good," appeared in its full perfection. Nothing, indeed, but the +possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the +bottom is the true character of any man. Without reading the speeches of +Vergniaud, Français of Nantes, Isnard, and some others of that sort, it +would not be easy to conceive the passion, rancor, and malice of their +tongues and hearts. They worked themselves up to a perfect frenzy +against religion and all its professors. They tore the reputation of the +clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before +they lacerated their bodies by their massacres. This fanatical atheism +left out, we omit the principal feature in the French Revolution, and a +principal consideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a +peace with it. + +The other sort of men were the politicians. To them, who had little or +not at all reflected on the subject, religion was in itself no object of +love or hatred. They disbelieved it, and that was all. Neutral with +regard to that object, they took the side which in the present state of +things might best answer their purposes. They soon found that they could +not do without the philosophers; and the philosophers soon made them +sensible that the destruction of religion was to supply them with means +of conquest, first at home, and then abroad. The philosophers were the +active internal agitators, and supplied the spirit and principles: the +second gave the practical direction. Sometimes the one predominated in +the composition, sometimes the other. The only difference between them +was in the necessity of concealing the general design for a time, and in +their dealing with foreign nations: the fanatics going straight forward +and openly, the politicians by the surer mode of zigzag. In the course +of events, this, among other causes, produced fierce and bloody +contentions between them; but at the bottom they thoroughly agreed in +all the objects of ambition and irreligion, and substantially in all the +means of promoting these ends. + +Without question, to bring about the unexampled event of the French +Revolution, the concurrence of a very great number of views and passions +was necessary. In that stupendous work, no one principle by which the +human mind may have its faculties at once invigorated and depraved was +left unemployed; but I can speak it to a certainty, and support it by +undoubted proofs, that the ruling principle of those who acted in the +Revolution _as statesmen_, had the exterior aggrandizement of France as +their ultimate end in the most minute part of the internal changes that +were made. We, who of late years have been drawn from an attention to +foreign affairs by the importance of our domestic discussions, cannot +easily form a conception of the general eagerness of the active and +energetic part of the French nation, itself the most active and +energetic of all nations, previous to its Revolution, upon that subject. +I am convinced that the foreign speculators in France, under the old +government, were twenty to one of the same description then or now in +England; and few of that description there were who did not emulously +set forward the Revolution. The whole official system, particularly in +the diplomatic part, the regulars, the irregulars, down to the clerks in +office, (a corps without all comparison more numerous than the same +amongst us,) coöperated in it. All the intriguers in foreign politics, +all the spies, all the intelligencers, actually or late in function, all +the candidates for that sort of employment, acted solely upon that +principle. + +On that system of aggrandizement there was but one mind: but two violent +factions arose about the means. The first wished France, diverted from +the politics of the Continent, to attend solely to her marine, to feed +it by an increase of commerce, and thereby to overpower England on her +own element. They contended, that, if England were disabled, the powers +on the Continent would fall into their proper subordination; that it was +England which deranged the whole Continental system of Europe. The +others, who were by far the more numerous, though not the most outwardly +prevalent at court, considered this plan for France as contrary to her +genius, her situation, and her natural means. They agreed as to the +ultimate object, the reduction of the British power, and, if possible, +its naval power; but they considered an ascendancy on the Continent as a +necessary preliminary to that undertaking. They argued, that the +proceedings of England herself had proved the soundness of this policy: +that her greatest and ablest statesmen had not considered the support of +a Continental balance against France as a deviation from the principle +of her naval power, but as one of the most effectual modes of carrying +it into effect; that such had been her policy ever since the Revolution, +during which period the naval strength of Great Britain had gone on +increasing in the direct ratio of her interference in the politics of +the Continent. With much stronger reason ought the politics of France to +take the same direction,--as well for pursuing objects which her +situation would dictate to her, though England had no existence, as for +counteracting the politics of that nation: to France Continental +politics are primary; they looked on them only of secondary +consideration to England, and, however necessary, but as means necessary +to an end. + +What is truly astonishing, the partisans of those two opposite systems +were at once prevalent, and at once employed, and in the very same +transactions, the one ostensibly, the other secretly, during the latter +part of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. Nor was there one court in +which an ambassador resided on the part of the ministers, in which +another, as a spy on him, did not also reside on the part of the king: +they who pursued the scheme for keeping peace on the Continent, and +particularly with Austria, acting officially and publicly; the other +faction counteracting and opposing them. These private agents were +continually going from their function to the Bastile, and from the +Bastile to employment and favor again. An inextricable cabal was formed, +some of persons of Rank, others of subordinates. But by this means the +corps of politicians was augmented in number, and the whole formed a +body of active, adventuring, ambitious, discontented people, despising +the regular ministry, despising the courts at which they were employed, +despising the court which employed them. + +The unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth[35] was not the first cause of the +evil by which he suffered. He came to it, as to a sort of inheritance, +by the false politics of his immediate predecessor. This system of dark +and perplexed intrigue had come to its perfection before he came to the +throne; and even then the Revolution strongly operated in all its +causes. + +There was no point on which the discontented diplomatic politicians so +bitterly arraigned their cabinet as for the decay of French influence in +all others. From quarrelling with the court, they began to complain of +monarchy itself, as a system of government too variable for any regular +plan of national aggrandizement. They observed that in that sort of +regimen too much depended on the personal character of the prince: that +the vicissitudes produced by the succession of princes of a different +character, and even the vicissitudes produced in the same man, by the +different views and inclinations belonging to youth, manhood, and age, +disturbed and distracted the policy of a country made by Nature for +extensive empire, or, what was still more to their taste, for that sort +of general overruling influence which prepared empire or supplied the +place of it. They had continually in their hands the observations of +Machiavel on Livy. They had Montesquieu's _Grandeur et Décadence des +Romains_ as a manual; and they compared, with mortification, the +systematic proceedings of a Roman Senate with the fluctuations of a +monarchy. They observed the very small additions of territory which all +the power of Prance, actuated by all the ambition of France, had +acquired in two centuries. The Romans had frequently acquired more in a +single year. They severely and in every part of it criticized the reign +of Louis the Fourteenth, whose irregular and desultory ambition had +more provoked than endangered Europe. Indeed, they who will be at the +pains of seriously considering the history of that period will see that +those French politicians had some reason. They who will not take the +trouble of reviewing it through all its wars and all its negotiations +will consult the short, but judicious, criticism of the Marquis de +Montalembert on that subject. It may be read separately from his +ingenious system of fortification and military defence, on the practical +merit of which I am unable to form a judgment. + +The diplomatic politicians of whom I speak, and who formed by far the +majority in that class, made disadvantageous comparisons even between +their more legal and formalizing monarchy and the monarchies of other +states, as a system of power and influence. They observed that France +not only lost ground herself, but, through the languor and unsteadiness +of her pursuits, and from her aiming through commerce at naval force +which she never could attain without losing more on one side than she +could gain on the other, three great powers, each of them (as military +states) capable of balancing her, had grown up on the Continent. Russia +and Prussia had been created almost within memory; and Austria, though +not a new power, and even curtailed in territory, was, by the very +collision in which she lost that territory, greatly improved in her +military discipline and force. During the reign of Maria Theresa, the +interior economy of the country was made more to correspond with the +support of great armies than formerly it had been. As to Prussia, a +merely military power, they observed that one war had enriched her with +as considerable a conquest as France had acquired in centuries. Russia +had broken the Turkish power, by which Austria might be, as formerly she +had been, balanced in favor of France. They felt it with pain, that the +two Northern powers of Sweden and Denmark were in general under the sway +of Russia,--or that, at best, France kept up a very doubtful conflict, +with many fluctuations of fortune, and at an enormous expense, in +Sweden. In Holland the French party seemed, if not extinguished, at +least utterly obscured, and kept under by a Stadtholder, leaning for +support sometimes on Great Britain, sometimes on Prussia, sometimes on +both, never on France. Even the spreading of the Bourbon family had +become merely a family accommodation, and had little effect oh the +national politics. This alliance, they said, extinguished Spain by +destroying all its energy, without adding anything to the real power of +France in the accession of the forces of its great rival. In Italy the +same family accommodation, the same national insignificance, were +equally visible. What cure for the radical weakness of the French +monarchy, to which all the means which wit could devise, or Nature and +fortune could bestow, towards universal empire, was not of force to give +life or vigor or consistency, but in a republic? Out the word came: and +it never went back. + +Whether they reasoned right or wrong, or that there was some mixture of +right and wrong in their reasoning, I am sure that in this manner they +felt and reasoned. The different effects of a great military and +ambitious republic and of a monarchy of the same description were +constantly in their mouths. The principle was ready to operate, when +opportunities should offer, which few of them, indeed, foresaw in the +extent in which they were afterwards presented; but these opportunities, +in some degree or other, they all ardently wished for. + +When I was in Paris in 1773, the treaty of 1756 between Austria and +France was deplored as a national, calamity; because it united France in +friendship with a power at whose expense alone they could hope any +Continental aggrandizement. When the first partition of Poland was made, +in which France had no share, and which had farther aggrandized every +one of the three powers of which they were most jealous, I found them in +a perfect frenzy of rage and indignation: not that they were hurt at the +shocking and uncolored violence and injustice of that partition, but at +the debility, improvidence, and want of activity in their government, in +not preventing it as a means of aggrandizement to their rivals, or in +not contriving, by exchanges of some kind or other, to obtain their +share of advantage from that robbery. + +In that or nearly in that state of things and of opinions came the +Austrian match, which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in effect +it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This added +exceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It was for +this reason that the late glorious queen, who on all accounts was formed +to produce general love and admiration, and whose life was as mild and +beneficent as her death was beyond example great and heroic, became so +very soon and so very much the object of an implacable rancor, never to +be extinguished but in her blood. When I wrote my letter in answer to M. +de Menonville, in the beginning of January, 1791, I had good reason for +thinking that this description of revolutionists did not so early nor so +steadily point their murderous designs at the martyr king as at the +royal heroine. It was accident, and the momentary depression of that +part of the faction, that gave to the husband the happy priority in +death. + +From this their restless desire of an overruling influence, they bent a +very great part of their designs and efforts to revive the old French +party, which was a democratic party, in Holland, and to make a +revolution there. They were happy at the troubles which the singular +imprudence of Joseph the Second had stirred up in the Austrian +Netherlands. They rejoiced, when they saw him irritate his subjects, +profess philosophy, send away the Dutch garrisons, and dismantle his +fortifications. As to Holland, they never forgave either the king or the +ministry for suffering that object, which they justly looked on as +principal in their design of reducing the power of England, to escape +out of their hands. This was the true secret of the commercial treaty, +made, on their part, against all the old rules and principles of +commerce, with a view of diverting the English nation, by a pursuit of +immediate profit, from an attention to the progress of France in its +designs upon that republic. The system of the economists, which led to +the general opening of commerce, facilitated that treaty, but did not +produce it. They were in despair, when they found, that, by the vigor of +Mr. Pitt, supported in this point by Mr. Fox and the opposition, the +object to which they had sacrificed their manufactures was lost to their +ambition. + +This eager desire of raising France from the condition into which she +had fallen, as they conceived, from her monarchical imbecility, had been +the main spring of their precedent interference in that unhappy American +quarrel, the bad effects of which to this nation have not as yet fully +disclosed themselves. These sentiments had been long lurking in their +breasts, though their views were only discovered now and then in heat +and as by escapes, but on this occasion they exploded suddenly. They +were professed with ostentation, and propagated with zeal. These +sentiments were not produced, as some think, by their American alliance. +The American alliance was produced by their republican principles and +republican policy. This new relation undoubtedly did much. The +discourses and cabals that it produced, the intercourse that it +established, and, above all, the example, which made it seem practicable +to establish a republic in a great extent of country, finished the work, +and gave to that part of the revolutionary faction a degree of strength +which required other energies than the late king possessed to resist or +even to restrain. It spread everywhere; but it was nowhere more +prevalent than in the heart of the court. The palace of Versailles, by +its language, seemed a forum of democracy. To have pointed out to most +of those politicians, from their dispositions and movements, what has +since happened, the fall of their own monarchy, of their own laws, of +their own religion, would have been to furnish a motive the more for +pushing forward a system on which they considered all these things as +incumbrances. Such in truth they were. And we have seen them succeed, +not only in the destruction of their monarchy, but in all the objects +of ambition that they proposed from that destruction. + +When I contemplate the scheme on which France is formed, and when I +compare it with these systems with which it is and ever must be in +conflict, those things which seem as defects in her polity are the very +things which make me tremble. The states of the Christian world have +grown up to their present magnitude in a great length of time and by a +great variety of accidents. They have been improved to what we see them +with greater or less degrees of felicity and skill. Not one of them has +been formed upon a regular plan or with any unity of design. As their +constitutions are not systematical, they have not been directed to any +_peculiar_ end, eminently distinguished, and superseding every other. +The objects which they embrace are of the greatest possible variety, and +have become in a manner infinite. In all these old countries, the state +has been made to the people, and not the people conformed to the state. +Every state has pursued not only every sort of social advantage, but it +has cultivated the welfare of every individual. His wants, his wishes, +even his tastes, have been consulted. This comprehensive scheme +virtually produced a degree of personal liberty in forms the most +adverse to it. That liberty was found, under monarchies styled absolute, +in a degree unknown to the ancient commonwealths. From hence the powers +of all our modern states meet, in all their movements, with some +obstruction. It is therefore no wonder, that when these states are to be +considered as machines to operate for some one great end, that this +dissipated and balanced force is not easily concentred, or made to bear +with the whole force of the nation upon one point. + +The British state is, without question, that which pursues the greatest +variety of ends, and is the least disposed to sacrifice any one of them +to another or to the whole. It aims at taking in the entire circle of +human desires, and securing for them their fair enjoyment. Our +legislature has been ever closely connected, in its most efficient part, +with individual feeling and individual interest. Personal liberty, the +most lively of these feelings and the most important of these interests, +which in other European countries has rather arisen from the system of +manners and the habitudes of life than from the laws of the state, (in +which it flourished more from neglect than attention,) in England has +been a direct object of government. + +On this principle, England would be the weakest power in the whole +system. Fortunately, however, the great riches of this kingdom, arising +from a variety of causes, and the disposition of the people, which is as +great to spend as to accumulate, has easily afforded a disposable +surplus that gives a mighty momentum to the state. This difficulty, with +these advantages to overcome it, has called forth the talents of the +English financiers, who, by the surplus of industry poured out by +prodigality, have outdone everything which has been accomplished in +other nations. The present minister has outdone his predecessors, and, +as a minister of revenue, is far above my power of praise. But still +there are cases in which England feels more than several others (though +they all feel) the perplexity of an immense body of balanced advantages +and of individual demands, and of some irregularity in the whole mass. + +France differs essentially from all those governments which are formed +without system, which exist by habit, and which are confused with the +multitude and with the complexity of their pursuits. What now stands as +government in France is struck out at a heat. The design is wicked, +immoral, impious, oppressive: but it is spirited and daring; it is +systematic; it is simple in its principle; it has unity and consistency +in perfection. In that country, entirely to cut off a branch of +commerce, to extinguish a manufacture, to destroy the circulation of +money, to violate credit, to suspend the course of agriculture, even to +burn a city or to lay waste a province of their own, does not cost them +a moment's anxiety. To them the will, the wish, the want, the liberty, +the toil, the blood of individuals, is as nothing. Individuality is left +out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything +is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is +trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its +maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion +and conquest for its sole objects,--dominion over minds by proselytism, +over bodies by arms. + +Thus constituted, with an immense body of natural means, which are +lessened in their amount only to be increased in their effect, France +has, since the accomplishment of the Revolution, a complete unity in its +direction. It has destroyed every resource of the state which depends +upon opinion and the good-will of individuals. The riches of convention +disappear. The advantages of Nature in some measure remain; even these, +I admit, are astonishingly lessened; the command over what remains is +complete and absolute. We go about asking when assignats will expire, +and we laugh at the last price of them. But what signifies the fate of +those tickets of despotism? The despotism will find despotic means of +supply. They have found the short cut to the productions of Nature, +while others, in pursuit of them, are obliged to wind through the +labyrinth of a very intricate state of society. They seize upon the +fruit of the labor; they seize upon the laborer himself. Were France but +half of what it is in population, in compactness, in applicability of +its force, situated as it is, and being what it is, it would be too +strong for most of the states of Europe, constituted as they are, and +proceeding as they proceed. Would it be wise to estimate what the world +of Europe, as well as the world of Asia, had to dread from Genghiz Khân, +upon a contemplation of the resources of the cold and barren spot in the +remotest Tartary from whence first issued that scourge of the human +race? Ought we to judge from the excise and stamp duties of the rocks, +or from the paper circulation of the sands of Arabia, the power by which +Mahomet and his tribes laid hold at once on the two most powerful +empires of the world, beat one of them totally to the ground, broke to +pieces the other, and, in not much longer space of time than I have +lived, overturned governments, laws, manners, religion, and extended an +empire from the Indus to the Pyrenees? + +Material resources never have supplied, nor ever can supply, the want of +unity in design and constancy in pursuit. But unity in design and +perseverance and boldness in pursuit have never wanted resources, and +never will. We have not considered as we ought the dreadful energy of a +state in which the property has nothing to do with the government +Reflect, my dear Sir, reflect again and again, on a government in which +the property is in complete subjection, and where nothing roles but the +mind of desperate men. The condition of a commonwealth not governed by +its property was a combination of things which the learned and ingenious +speculator, Harrington, who has tossed about society into all forms, +never could imagine to be possible. We have seen it; the world has felt +it; and if the world will shut their eyes to this state of things, they +will feel it more. The rulers there have found their resources in +crimes. The discovery is dreadful, the mine exhaustless. They have +everything to gain, and they have nothing to lose. They have a boundless +inheritance in hope, and there is no medium for them betwixt the highest +elevation and death with infamy. Never can they, who, from the miserable +servitude of the desk, have been raised to empire, again submit to the +bondage of a starving bureau, or the profit of copying music, or writing +_plaidoyers_ by the sheet. It has made me often smile in bitterness, +when I have heard talk of an indemnity to such men, provided they +returned to their allegiance. + +From all this what is my inference? It is, that this new system of +robbery in France cannot be rendered safe by any art; that it _must_ be +destroyed, or that it will destroy all Europe; that to destroy that +enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to +bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that +system exerts; that war ought to be made against it in its vulnerable +parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this republic nothing +independent can coexist. The errors of Louis the Sixteenth were more +pardonable to prudence than any of those of the same kind into which the +allied courts may fall. They have the benefit of his dreadful example. + +The unhappy Louis the Sixteenth was a man of the best intentions that +probably ever reigned. He was by no means deficient in talents. He had a +most laudable desire to supply by general reading, and even by the +acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points +originally defective; but nobody told him (and it was no wonder he +should not himself divine it) that the world of which he read and the +world in which he lived were no longer the same. Desirous of doing +everything for the best, fearful of cabal, distrusting his own judgment, +he sought his ministers of all kinds upon public testimony. But as +courts are the field for caballers, the public is the theatre for +mountebanks and impostors. The cure for both those evils is in the +discernment of the prince. But an accurate and penetrating discernment +is what in a young prince could not be looked for. + +His conduct in its principle was not unwise; but, like most other of his +well-meant designs, it failed in his hands. It failed partly from mere +ill fortune, to which speculators are rarely pleased to assign that very +large share to which she is justly entitled in all human affairs. The +failure, perhaps, in part, was owing to his suffering his system to be +vitiated and disturbed by those intrigues which it is, humanly speaking, +impossible wholly to prevent in courts, or indeed under any form of +government. However, with these aberrations, he gave himself over to a +succession of the statesmen of public opinion. In other things he +thought that he might be a king on the terms of his predecessors. He was +conscious of the purity of his heart and the general good tendency of +his government. He flattered himself, as most men in his situation will, +that he might consult his ease without danger to his safety. It is not +at all wonderful that both he and his ministers, giving way abundantly +in other respects to innovation, should take up in policy with the +tradition of their monarchy. Under his ancestors, the monarchy had +subsisted, and even been strengthened, by the generation or support of +republics. First, the Swiss republics grew under the guardianship of the +French monarchy. The Dutch republics were hatched and cherished under +the same incubation. Afterwards, a republican constitution was, under +the influence of France, established in the Empire, against the +pretensions of its chief. Even whilst the monarchy of France, by a +series of wars and negotiations, and lastly by the Treaties of +Westphalia, had obtained the establishment of the Protestants in Germany +as a law of the Empire, the same monarchy under Louis the Thirteenth had +force enough to destroy the republican system of the Protestants at +home. + +Louis the Sixteenth was a diligent reader of history. But the very lamp +of prudence blinded him. The guide of human life led him astray. A +silent revolution in the moral world preceded the political, and +prepared it. It became of more importance than ever what examples were +given, and what measures wore adopted. Their causes no longer lurked in +the recesses of cabinets or in the private conspiracies of the factious. +They were no longer to be controlled by the force and influence of the +grandees, who formerly had been able to stir up troubles by their +discontents and to quiet them by their corruption. The chain of +subordination, even in cabal and sedition, was broken in its most +important links. It was no longer the great and the populace. Other +interests were formed, other dependencies, other connections, other +communications. The middle classes had swelled far beyond their former +proportion. Like whatever is the most effectively rich and great in +society, these classes became the seat of all the active politics, and +the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the energies +by which fortune is acquired; there the consequence of their success. +There were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and are +impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them. These +descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and the +influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit of ambition had +taken possession of this class as violently as ever it had done of any +other. They felt the importance of this situation. The correspondence of +the moneyed and the mercantile world, the literary intercourse of +academies, but above all, the press, of which they had in a manner +entire possession, made a kind of electric communication everywhere. The +press, in reality, has made every government, in its spirit, almost +democratic. Without the great, the first movements in this revolution +could not, perhaps, have been given. But the spirit of ambition, now for +the first time connected with the spirit of speculation, was not to be +restrained at will. There was no longer any means of arresting a +principle in its course. When Louis the Sixteenth, under the influence +of the enemies to monarchy, meant to found but one republic, he set up +two; when he meant to take away half the crown of his neighbor, he lost +the whole of his own. Louis the Sixteenth could not with impunity +countenance a new republic. Yet between his throne and that dangerous +lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, he had the whole Atlantic +for a ditch. He had for an outwork the English nation itself, friendly +to liberty, adverse to that mode of it. He was surrounded by a rampart +of monarchies, most of them allied to him, and generally under his +influence. Yet even thus secured, a republic erected under his auspices, +and dependent on his power, became fatal to his throne. The very money +which he had lent to support this republic, by a good faith which to him +operated as perfidy, was punctually paid to his enemies, and became a +resource in the hands of his assassins. + +With this example before their eyes, do any ministers in England, do any +ministers in Austria, really flatter themselves that they can erect, not +on the remote shores of the Atlantic, but in their view, in their +vicinity, in absolute contact with one of them, not a commercial, but a +martial republic,--a republic not of simple husbandmen or fishermen, but +of intriguers, and of warriors,--a republic of a character the most +restless, the most enterprising, the most impious, the most fierce and +bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the most bold and daring, +that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be conceived to exist, +without bringing on their own certain ruin? + +Such is the republic to which we are going to give a place in civilized +fellowship,--the republic which, with joint consent, we are going to +establish in the centre of Europe, in a post that overlooks and +commands every other state, and which eminently confronts and menaces +this kingdom. + +You cannot fail to observe that I speak as if the allied powers were +actually consenting, and not compelled by events, to the establishment +of this faction in France. The words have not escaped me. You will +hereafter naturally expect that I should make them good. But whether in +adopting this measure we are madly active or weakly passive or +pusillanimously panic-struck, the effects will be the same. You may call +this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy, expelled the +proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,[36]--you may +call this Prance, if you please; but of the ancient France nothing +remains but its central geography, its iron frontier, its spirit of +ambition, its audacity of enterprise, its perplexing intrigue. These, +and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle +and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of +virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No +single new corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new +institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when everything +has been chosen with care and selection to forward all those ambitious +designs and dispositions, not to control them? The whole is a body of +ways and means for the supply of dominion, without one heterogeneous +particle in it. + +Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has +occurred to me on the _genius and character_ of the French Revolution. +From having this before us, we may be better able to determine on the +first question I proposed,--that is, How far nations called foreign are +likely to be affected with the system established within that territory. +I intended to proceed next on the question of her facilities, _from the +internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for +obtaining her ends; but I ought to be aware that my notions are +controverted. I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of +what in that way has been recommended to me as the most deserving of +notice. In the examination of those pieces, I shall have occasion to +discuss some others of the topics to which I have called your attention. +You know that the letters which I now send to the press, as well as a +part of what is to follow, have been in their substance long since +written. A circumstance which your partiality alone could make of +importance to you, but which to the public is of no importance at all, +retarded their appearance. The late events which press upon us obliged +me to make some additions, but no substantial change in the matter. + +This discussion, my friend, will be long. But the matter is serious; and +if ever the fate of the world could be truly said to depend on a +particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[34] See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793. + +[35] It may be right to do justice to Louis the Sixteenth. He did what +he could to destroy the double diplomacy of France. He had all the +secret correspondence burnt, except one piece, which was called +_Conjectures raisonnées sur la Situation actuelle de la France dans le +Système Politique de l'Europe_: a work executed by M. Favier, under the +direction of Count Broglie. A single copy of this was said to have been +found in the cabinet of Louis the Sixteenth. It was published with some +subsequent state-papers of Vergennes, Turgot, and others, as "a new +benefit of the Revolution," and the advertisement to the publication +ends with the following words: "_Il sera facile de se convaincre_, QU'Y +COMPRIS MÊME LA RÉVOLUTION, _en grande partie_, ON TROUVE DANS CES +_MEMOIRES_ ET CES _CONJECTURES_ LE GERME DE TOUT CE QUI ARRIVE +AUJOURD'HUI, _et qu'on ne peut, sans les avoir lus, être bien au fait +des intérêts, et même des vues actuelles des diverses puissances de +l'Europe_." The book is entitled _Politique de tous les Cabinets de +l'Europe pendant la Règnes de Louis XV. et de Louis XVI_. It is +altogether very curious, and worth reading. + +[36] See our Declaration. + + + + +LETTER III. + +ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE +RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR. + + +Dear Sir,--I thank you for the bundle of state-papers which I received +yesterday. I have travelled through the negotiation,--and a sad, +founderous road it is. There is a sort of standing jest against my +countrymen,--that one of them on his journey having found a piece of +pleasant road, he proposed to his companion to go over it again. This +proposal, with regard to the worthy traveller's final destination, was +certainly a blunder. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; +for the way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide +negotiations it is otherwise: our "paths are not paths of pleasantness, +nor our ways the ways to peace." All our mistakes, (if such they are,) +like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and +they will be full as far from bringing us to our place of rest as his +well-considered project was from forwarding him to his inn. Yet I see we +persevere. Fatigued with our former course, too listless to explore a +new one, kept in action by inertness, moving only because we have been +in motion, with a sort of plodding perseverance we resolve to measure +back again the very same joyless, hopeless, and inglorious track. +Backward and forward,--oscillation, space,--the travels of a postilion, +miles enough to circle the globe in one short stage,--we have been, and +we are yet to be, jolted and rattled over the loose, misplaced stones +and the treacherous hollows of this rough, ill-kept, broken-up, +treacherous French causeway! + +The Declaration which brings up the rear of the papers laid before +Parliament contains a review and a reasoned summary of all our attempts +and all our failures,--a concise, but correct narrative of the painful +steps taken to bring on the essay of a treaty at Paris,--a clear +exposure of all the rebuffs we received in the progress of that +experiment,--an honest confession of our departure from all the rules +and all the principles of political negotiation, and of common prudence +in the conduct of it,--and to crown the whole, a fair account of the +atrocious manner in which the Regicide enemies had broken up what had +been so inauspiciously begun and so feebly carried on, by finally, and +with all scorn, driving our suppliant ambassador out of the limits of +their usurpation. + +Even after all that I have lately seen, I was a little surprised at this +exposure. A minute display of hopes formed without foundation and of +labors pursued without fruit is a thing not very flattering to +self-estimation. But truth has its rights, and it will assert them. The +Declaration, after doing all this with a mortifying candor, concludes +the whole recapitulation with an engagement still more extraordinary +than all the unusual matter it contains. It says that "His Majesty, who +had entered into the negotiation with _good faith_, who had suffered +_no_ impediment to prevent his prosecuting it with _earnestness and +sincerity_, has now _only to lament_ its abrupt termination, and to +renew _in the face of all Europe the solemn declaration_, that, whenever +his enemies shall be _disposed_ to enter on the work of general +pacification in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing shall be +wanting on his part to contribute to the accomplishment of that great +object." + +If the disgusting detail of the accumulated insults we have received, in +what we have very properly called our "solicitation" to a gang of felons +and murderers, had been produced as a proof of the utter inefficacy of +that mode of proceeding with that description of persons, I should have +nothing at all to object to it. It might furnish matter conclusive in +argument and instructive in policy; but, with all due submission to high +authority, and with all decent deference to superior lights, it does not +seem quite clear to a discernment no better than mine that the premises +in that piece conduct irresistibly to the conclusion. A labored display +of the ill consequences which have attended an uniform course of +submission to every mode of contumelious insult, with which the +despotism of a proud, capricious, insulting, and implacable foe has +chosen to buffet our patience, does not appear to my poor thoughts to be +properly brought forth as a preliminary to justify a resolution of +persevering in the very same kind of conduct, towards the very same sort +of person, and on the very same principles. We state our experience, and +then we come to the manly resolution of acting in contradiction to it. +All that has passed at Paris, to the moment of our being shamefully +hissed off that stage, has been nothing but a more solemn representation +on the theatre of the nation of what had been before in rehearsal at +Basle. As it is not only confessed by us, but made a matter of charge on +the enemy, that he had given us no encouragement to believe there was a +change in his disposition or in his policy at any time subsequent to the +period of his rejecting our first overtures, there seems to have been no +assignable motive for sending Lord Malmesbury to Paris, except to expose +his humbled country to the worst indignities, and the first of the kind, +as the Declaration very truly observes, that have been known in the +world of negotiation. + +An honest neighbor of mine is not altogether unhappy in the application +of an old common story to a present occasion. It may be said of my +friend, what Horace says of a neighbor of his, "_Garrit aniles ex re +fabellas_." Conversing on this strange subject, he told me a current +story of a simple English country squire, who was persuaded by certain +_dilettanti_ of his acquaintance to see the world, and to become knowing +in men and manners. Among other celebrated places, it was recommended to +him to visit Constantinople. He took their advice. After various +adventures, not to our purpose to dwell upon, he happily arrived at that +famous city. As soon as he had a little reposed himself from his +fatigue, he took a walk into the streets; but he had not gone far, +before "a malignant and a turbaned Turk" had his choler roused by the +careless and assured air with which this infidel strutted about in the +metropolis of true believers. In this temper he lost no time in doing to +our traveller the honors of the place. The Turk crossed over the way, +and with perfect good-will gave him two or three lusty kicks on the seat +of honor. To resent or to return the compliment in Turkey was quite out +of the question. Our traveller, since he could not otherwise acknowledge +this kind of favor, received it with the best grace in the world: he +made one of his most ceremonious bows, and begged the kicking Mussulman +"to accept his perfect assurances of high consideration." Our countryman +was too wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger. He thought it +better, as better it was, to assuage his bruised dignity with half a +yard square of balmy diplomatic diachylon. In the disasters of their +friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they +are such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of +pleasantry. The English fellow-travellers of our sufferer, finding him a +little out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a business so +very seriously. They told him it was the custom of the country; that +every country had its customs; that the Turkish manners were a little +rough, but that in the main the Turks were a good-natured people; that +what would have been a deadly affront anywhere else was only a little +freedom there: in short, they told him to think no more of the matter, +and to try his fortune in another promenade. But the squire, though a +little clownish, had some home-bred sense. "What! have I come, at all +this expense and trouble, all the way to Constantinople only to be +kicked? Without going beyond my own stable, my groom, for half a crown, +would have kicked me to my heart's content. I don't mean to stay in +Constantinople eight-and-forty hours, nor ever to return to this rough, +good-natured people, that have their own customs." + +In my opinion the squire was in the right. He was satisfied with his +first ramble and his first injuries. But reason of state and common +sense are two things. If it were not for this difference, it might not +appear of absolute necessity, after having received a certain quantity +of buffetings by advance, that we should send a peer of the realm to the +scum of the earth to collect the debt to the last farthing, and to +receive, with infinite aggravation, the same scorns which had been paid +to our supplication through a commoner: but it was proper, I suppose, +that the whole of our country, in all its orders, should have a share of +the indignity, and, as in reason, that the higher orders should touch +the larger proportion. + +This business was not ended because our dignity was wounded, or because +our patience was worn out with contumely and scorn. We had not disgorged +one particle of the nauseous doses with which we were so liberally +crammed by the mountebanks of Paris in order to drug and diet us into +perfect tameness. No,--we waited till the morbid strength of our +_boulimia_ for their physic had exhausted the well-stored dispensary of +their empiricism. It is impossible to guess at the term to which our +forbearance would have extended. The Regicides were more fatigued with +giving blows than the callous cheek of British diplomacy was hurt in +receiving them. They had no way left for getting rid of this mendicant +perseverance, but by sending for the beadle, and forcibly driving our +embassy "of shreds and patches," with all its mumping cant, from the +inhospitable door of Cannibal Castle,-- + + "Where the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate, + Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat," + +I think we might have found, before the rude hand of insolent office was +on our shoulder, and the staff of usurped authority brandished over our +heads, that contempt of the suppliant is not the best forwarder of a +suit,--that national disgrace is not the high-road to security, much +less to power and greatness. Patience, indeed, strongly indicates the +lore of peace; but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. It is +the power of winning that palm which insures our wearing it. Virtues +have their place; and out of their place they hardly deserve the +name,--they pass into the neighboring vice. The patience of fortitude +and the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in +their principle, so in their effects. + +In truth, this Declaration, containing a narrative of the first +transaction of the kind (and I hope it will be the last) in the +intercourse of nations, as a composition, is ably drawn. It does credit +to our official style. The report of the speech of the minister in a +great assembly, which I have read, is a comment upon the Declaration. +Without inquiry how far that report is exact, (inferior I believe it may +be to what it would represent,) yet still it reads as a most eloquent +and finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the +indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide to the supplications +made to that junto in his Majesty's name has been spared. Every one of +the aggravations attendant on these acts of outrage is, with wonderful +perspicuity and order, brought forward in its place, and in the manner +most fitted to produce its effect. They are turned to every point of +view in which they can be seen to the best advantage. All the parts are +so arranged as to point out their relation, and to furnish a true idea +of the spirit of the whole transaction. + +This speech may stand for a model. Never, for the triumphal decoration +of any theatre, not for the decoration of those of Athens and Rome, or +even of this theatre of Paris, from the embroideries of Babylon or from +the loom of the Gobelins, has there been sent any historic tissue so +truly drawn, so closely and so finely wrought, or in which the forms are +brought out in the rich purple of such glowing and blushing colors. It +puts me in mind of the piece of tapestry with which Virgil proposed to +adorn the theatre he was to erect to Augustus upon the banks of the +Mincio, who now hides his head in his reeds, and leads his slow and +melancholy windings through banks wasted by the barbarians of Gaul. He +supposes that the artifice is such, that the figures of the conquered +nations in his tapestry are made to play their part, and are confounded +in the machine,-- + + utque + Purpurea intexti tollant aulæa Britanni; + +or, as Dryden translates it, somewhat paraphrastically, but not less in +the spirit of the prophet than of the poet,-- + + "Where the proud theatres disclose the scene, + Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, + And show the triumph which their shame displays." + +It is something wonderful, that the sagacity shown in the Declaration +and the speech (and, so far as it goes, greater was never shown) should +have failed to discover to the writer and to the speaker the inseparable +relation between the parties to this transaction, and that nothing can +be said to display the imperious arrogance of a base enemy which does +not describe with equal force and equal truth the contemptible figure of +an abject embassy to that imperious power. + +It is no less striking, that the same obvious reflection should not +occur to those gentlemen who conducted the opposition to government. But +their thoughts were turned another way. They seem to have been so +entirely occupied with the defence of the French Directory, so very +eager in finding recriminatory; precedents to justify every act of its +intolerable insolence, so animated in their accusations of ministry for +not having at the very outset made concessions proportioned to the +dignity of the great victorious power we had offended, that everything +concerning the sacrifice in this business of national honor, and of the +most fundamental principles in the policy of negotiation, seemed wholly +to have escaped them. To this fatal hour, the contention in Parliament +appeared in another form, and was animated by another spirit. For three +hundred years and more, we have had wars with what stood as government +in France. In all that period, the language of ministers, whether of +boast or of apology, was, that they had left nothing undone for the +assertion of the national honor,--the opposition, whether patriotically +or factiously, contending that the ministers had been oblivious of the +national glory, and had made improper sacrifices of that public interest +which they were bound not only to preserve, but by all fair methods to +augment. This total change of tone on both sides of your House forms +itself no inconsiderable revolution; and I am afraid it prognosticates +others of still greater importance. The ministers exhausted the stores +of their eloquence in demonstrating that they had quitted the safe, +beaten highway of treaty between independent powers,--that, to pacify +the enemy, they had made every sacrifice of the national dignity,--and +that they had offered to immolate at the same shrine the most valuable +of the national acquisitions. The opposition insisted that the victims +were not fat nor fair enough to be offered on the altars of blasphemed +Regicide; and it was inferred from thence, that the sacrifical +ministers, (who were a sort of intruders in the worship of the new +divinity,) in their schismatical devotion, had discovered more of +hypocrisy than zeal. They charged them with a concealed resolution to +persevere in what these gentlemen have (in perfect consistency, indeed, +with themselves, but most irreconcilably with fact and reason) called an +unjust and impolitic war. + +That day was, I fear, the fatal term of _local_ patriotism. On that day, +I fear, there was an end of that narrow scheme of relations called our +country, with all its pride, its prejudices, and its partial affections. +All the little quiet rivulets, that watered an humble, a contracted, but +not an unfruitful field, are to be lost in the waste expanse, and +boundless, barren ocean of the homicide philanthropy of France. It is no +longer an object of terror, the aggrandizement of a new power which +teaches as a professor that philanthropy in the chair, whilst it +propagates by arms and establishes by conquest the comprehensive system +of universal fraternity. In what light is all this viewed in a great +assembly? The party which takes the lead there has no longer any +apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted to the +closest and most confidential connections with the metropolis of that +fraternity. That reigning party no longer touches on its favorite +subject, the display of those horrors that must attend the existence of +a power with such dispositions and principles, seated in the heart of +Europe. It is satisfied to find some loose, ambiguous expressions in +its former declarations, which may set it free from its professions and +engagements. It always speaks of peace with the Regicides as a great and +an undoubted blessing, and such a blessing as, if obtained, promises, as +much as any human disposition of things can promise, security and +permanence. It holds out nothing at all definite towards this security. +It only seeks, by a restoration to some of their former owners of some +fragments of the general wreck of Europe, to find a plausible plea for a +present retreat from an embarrassing position. As to the future, that +party is content to leave it covered in a night of the most palpable +obscurity. It never once has entered into a particle of detail of what +our own situation, or that of other powers, must be, under the blessings +of the peace we seek. This defect, to my power, I mean to supply,--that, +if any persons should still continue to think an attempt at foresight is +any part of the duty of a statesman, I may contribute my trifle to the +materials of his speculation. + +As to the other party, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of +to-morrow, small in number, but full of talents and every species of +energy, which, upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to +France, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom, it has never +changed from the beginning. It has preserved a perennial consistency. +This would be a never failing source of true glory, if springing from +just and right; but it is truly dreadful, if it be an arm of Styx, which +springs out of the profoundest depths of a poisoned soil. The French +maxims were by these gentlemen at no time condemned. I speak of their +language in the most moderate terms. There are many who think that they +have gone much further,--that they have always magnified and extolled +the French maxims,--that; not in the least disgusted or discouraged by +the monstrous evils which have attended these maxims from the moment of +their adoption both at home and abroad, they still continue to predict +that in due time they must produce the greatest good to the poor human +race. They obstinately persist in stating those evils as matter of +accident, as things wholly collateral to the system. + +It is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great +Britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard: on the contrary, +it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in +such terms of contempt or execration as never had been heard +before,--because no such would have formerly been permitted in our +public assemblies. The moment, however, that any of those allies quitted +this obnoxious connection, the party has instantly passed an act of +indemnity and oblivion in their favor. After this, no sort of censure on +their conduct, no imputation on their character. From that moment their +pardon was sealed in a reverential and mysterious silence. With the +gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one end of Europe to +the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed to act. The whole +college of the states of Europe is no better than a gang of tyrants. +With them all our connections were broken off at once. We ought to have +cultivated France, and France alone, from the moment of her Revolution. +On that happy change, all our dread of that nation as a power was to +cease. She became in an instant dear to our affections and one with our +interests. All other nations we ought to have commanded not to trouble +her sacred throes, whilst in labor to bring into an happy birth her +abundant litter of constitutions. We ought to have acted under her +auspices, in extending her salutary influence upon every side. From that +moment England and France were become natural allies, and all the other +states natural enemies. The whole face of the world was changed. What +was it to us, if she acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands? By +her conquests she only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence, she only +extended the blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant +nations. What was it to England, if, by adding these, among the richest +and most peopled countries of the world, to her territories, she thereby +left no possible link of communication between us and any other power +with whom we could act against her? On this new system of optimism, it +is so much the better: so much the further are we removed from the +contact with infectious despotism. No longer a thought of a barrier in +the Netherlands to Holland against France. All that is obsolete policy. +It is fit that France should have both Holland and the Austrian +Netherlands too, as a barrier to her against the attacks of despotism. +She cannot multiply her securities too much; and as to our security, it +is to be found in hers. Had we cherished her from the beginning, and +felt for her when attacked, she, poor, good soul, would never have +invaded any foreign nation, never murdered her sovereign and his family, +never proscribed, never exiled, never imprisoned, never been guilty of +extra-judicial massacre or of legal murder. All would have been a golden +age, full of peace, order, and liberty,--and philosophy, raying out from +Europe, would have warmed and enlightened the universe; but, unluckily, +irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was pat into a +passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They +find all this very natural and very justifiable. They choose to forget +that other nations, struggling for freedom, have been attacked by their +neighbors, or that their neighbors have otherwise interfered in their +affairs. Often have neighbors interfered in favor of princes against +their rebellious subjects, and often in favor of subjects against their +prince. Such cases fill half the pages of history; yet never were they +used as an apology, much less as a justification, for atrocious cruelty +in princes, or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of +revolted subjects,--never as a politic cause for suffering any such +powers to aggrandize themselves without limit and without measure. A +thousand times have we seen it asserted in public prints and pamphlets, +that, if the nobility and priesthood of France had stayed at home, their +property never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of +the clergy had been robbed previous to their deportation, or that their +deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think +that the nobility and gentry, and merchants and bankers, who stayed at +home, had enjoyed their property in security and repose. The assertors +of these positions well know that the lot of thousands who remained at +home was far more terrible, that the most cruel imprisonment was only a +harbinger of a cruel and ignominious death, and that in this mother +country of freedom there were no less than _three hundred thousand_ at +one time in prison. I go no further. I instance only these +representations of the party, as staring indications of partiality to +that sect to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to +oppose but her own naked force, and consequently subjected us, on every +reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under those very +evils, in that very system, which are attributed, not to its own nature, +but to the perverseness of others. There is nothing in the world so +difficult as to put men in a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning +there must ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to +observe to what side that leaning inclines,--whether to our own +community, or to one with which it is in a state of hostility. + +Men are rarely without some sympathy in the sufferings of others; but in +the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be pitied, +but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must make a choice. Our +sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of +certain persons, and in certain descriptions: and this sympathetic +attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of mistake, our mental +affinities and elective affections. It is a much surer proof than the +strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias in +the mind. I am told that the active sympathies of this party have been +chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal +rebels who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims of the French +Revolution, and who have suffered from their apt and forward scholars +some part of the evils which they had themselves so liberally +distributed to all the other parts of the community. Some of these men, +flying from the knives which they had sharpened against their country +and its laws, rebelling against the very powers they had set over +themselves by their rebellion against their sovereign, given up by those +very armies to whose faithful attachment they trusted for their safety +and support, after they had completely debauched all military fidelity +in its source,--some of these men, I say, had fallen into the hands of +the head of that family the most illustrious person of which they had +three times cruelly imprisoned, and delivered in that state of captivity +to those hands from which they were able to relieve neither her, nor +their own nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these men, +connected with this country by no circumstance of birth,--not related to +any distinguished families here,--recommended by no service,--endeared +to this nation by no act or even expression of kindness,--comprehended +in no league or common cause,--embraced by no laws of public +hospitality,--this man was the only one to be found in Europe, in whose +favor the British nation, passing judgment without hearing on its almost +only ally, was to force (and that not by soothing interposition, but +with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and breach of the laws of +war) from prison. We were to release him from that prison out of which, +in abuse of the lenity of government amidst its rigor, and in violation +of at least an understood parole, he had attempted an escape,--an escape +excusable, if you will, but naturally productive of strict and vigilant +confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free this person was the +more extraordinary because there was full as little in him to raise +admiration, from any eminent qualities he possessed, as there was to +excite an interest, from any that were amiable. A person not only of no +real civil or literary talents, but of no specious appearance of +either,--and in his military profession not marked as a leader in any +one act of able or successful enterprise, unless his leading on (or his +following) the allied army of Amazonian and male cannibal Parisians to +Versailles, on the famous 6th of October, 1789, is to make his glory. +Any otter exploit of his, as a general, I never heard of. But the +triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total +want of particular claims in that case,--and by postponing all such +claims in a case where they really existed, where they stood embossed, +and in a manner forced themselves on the view of common, shortsighted +benevolence. Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these +gentlemen was thus on its travels, and had got as far off as Olmütz, +they never thought of a place and a person much nearer to them, or of +moving an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favor of their own suffering +countryman, Sir Sydney Smith. + +This officer, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a +vessel from one of the enemy's harbors, was taken after an obstinate +resistance,--such as obtained him the marked respect of those who were +witnesses of his valor, and knew the circumstances in which it was +displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into +prison, where the nature of his situation will best be understood by +knowing that amongst its _mitigations_ was the permission to walk +occasionally in the court and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. +On the old system of feelings and principles, his sufferings might have +been entitled to consideration, and, even in a comparison with those of +Citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. If the +ministers had neglected to take any steps in his favor, a declaration of +the sense of the House of Commons would have stimulated them to their +duty. If they had caused a representation to be made, such a proceeding +would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, +the address of the House would have given an additional sanction to a +measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other +sanction than its own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, +the merit of Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was +of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the +authors of the motion in favor of Citizen La Fayette. In my humble +opinion, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit with the +British nation, and something of a higher claim on British humanity, +than Citizen La Fayette. Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of +his king and country,--full of spirit,--full of resources,--going out of +the beaten road, but going right, because his uncommon enterprise was +not conducted by a vulgar judgment,--in his profession Sir Sydney Smith +might be considered as a distinguished person, if any person could well +be distinguished in a service in which scarce a commander can be named +without putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity, skill, and +vigilance that has given them a fair title to contend with any men and +in any age. But I will say nothing farther of the merits of Sir Sydney +Smith: the mortal animosity of the Regicide enemy supersedes all other +panegyric. Their hatred is a judgment in his favor without appeal. At +present he is lodged in the tower of the Temple, the last prison of +Louis the Sixteenth, and the last but one of Marie Antoinette of +Austria,--the prison of Louis the Seventeenth,--the prison of Elizabeth +of Bourbon. There he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to +meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their king and +country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from intercourse, was indulging +in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further +consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation of his +guards) that there was an English ambassador at Paris; he might have had +the proud comfort of hearing that this ambassador had the honor of +passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a +Regicide pettifogger, and that in the evening he relaxed in the +amusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally +new,--an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about him not a +single face that he could formerly have known in Paris, but, in the +place of that company, one indeed more than equal to it in display of +gayety, splendor, and luxury,--a set of abandoned wretches, squandering +in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country: a subject of +profound reflection both to the prisoner and to the ambassador. + +Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this +last party be fully authenticated or not must be left to those who have +had the opportunity of a nearer view of its conduct, and who have been +more attentive in their perusal of the writings which have appeared in +its favor. But for my part, I have never heard the gross facts on which +I ground my idea of their marked partiality to the reigning tyranny in +France in any part denied. I am not surprised at all this. Opinions, as +they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the +affections; and men may become more attached to the country of their +principles than to the country of their birth. What I have stated here +is only to mark the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat +different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders, and to trace this +first pattern of a negotiation to its true source. + +Such is the present state of our public councils. Well might I be +ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with the +two most eloquent men which this country ever saw at the head of them, +if I had found that either of them could support their conduct by any +example in the history of their country. I should very much prefer their +judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an infinitely +overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom, of +ages to the abilities of any two men living.--I return to the +Declaration, with which the history of the abortion of a treaty with the +Regicides is closed. + +After such an elaborate display had been made of the injustice and +insolence of an enemy who seems to have been irritated by every one of +the means which had been commonly used with effect to soothe the rage of +intemperate power, the natural result would be, that the scabbard in +which we in vain attempted to plunge our sword should have been thrown +away with scorn. It would have been natural, that, rising in the fulness +of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, +rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have poured out +all the length of the reins upon all the wrath which they had so long +restrained. It might have been expected, that, emulous of the glory of +the youthful hero[37] in alliance with him, touched by the example of +what one man well formed and well placed may do in the most desperate +state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as +powerful and far less vulgar than that of the field, our minister would +have changed the whole line of that unprosperous prudence which hitherto +had produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his +situation full of danger, (and I do not deny that it is perilous in the +extreme,) he must feel that it is also full of glory, and that he is +placed on a stage than which no muse of fire that had ascended the +highest heaven of invention could imagine anything more awful and +august. It was hoped that in this swelling scene in which he moved, with +some of the first potentates of Europe for his fellow-actors, and with +so many of the rest for the anxious spectators of a part which, as he +plays it, determines forever their destiny and his own, like Ulysses in +the unravelling point of the epic story, he would have thrown off his +patience and his rags together, and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he +would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of an hero. On +that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars; that he +would bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel (where his +scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of +war whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that +feeds them; that he would let them loose, in famine, fever, plagues, +and death, upon a guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit, +order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. It was +expected that he would at last have thought of active and effectual war; +that he would no longer amuse the British lion in the chase of mice and +rats; that he would no longer employ the whole naval power of Great +Britain, once the terror of the world, to prey upon the miserable +remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard, and from +which none could profit. It was expected that he would have reasserted +the justice of his cause; that he would have reanimated whatever +remained to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover those whom +their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial +ardor of his citizens; that he would have held out to them the example +of their ancestry, the assertor of Europe, and the scourge of French +ambition; that he would have reminded them of a posterity, which, if +this nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and false color of a +government, should in full power be seated in the heart of Europe, must +forever be consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most +ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy a cause it was presumed +that he would (as in the beginning of the war he did) have opened all +the temples, and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication, +(better directed than to the grim Moloch of Regicide in France,) have +called upon us to raise that united cry which has: so often stormed +heaven, and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon a repentant +people. It was hoped, that, when he had invoked upon his endeavors the +favorable regard of the Protector of the human race, it would be seen +that his menaces to the enemy and his prayers to the Almighty were not +followed, but accompanied, with correspondent action. It was hoped that +his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to +sound a charge. + +Such a conclusion to such a declaration and such a speech would have +been a thing of course,--so much a thing of course, that I will be bold +to say, if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance, (supposing +that in Rome the matter of such a detail could have been furnished,) a +consul had gone through such a long train of proceedings, and that there +was a chasm in the manuscripts by which we had lost the conclusion of +the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would +agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to have managed the +supplementary business of a continuator most unskillfully, and to have +supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping +space in a manner somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I +have imagined. But too often different is rational conjecture from +melancholy fact. This exordium, as contrary to all the rules of rhetoric +as to those more essential rules of policy which our situation would +dictate, is intended as a prelude to a deadening and disheartening +proposition; as if all that a minister had to fear in a war of his own +conducting was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. +Such a tone as I guessed the minister would have taken, I am very sure, +is the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine, natural +feeling, under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a +conduct as the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect is +that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of those +genuine feelings. Never was there a jar or discord between genuine +sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did Nature say one thing +and Wisdom say another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves +turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than in her +grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal robber has yet +left him at Belvedere) is as much in Nature as any figure from the +pencil of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of Téniers. +Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds +must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion +under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which serves +only to destroy the body that entertains it. But vehement passion does +not always indicate an infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and +actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when +they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy +disorder within and to repel injury from abroad. If ever there was a +time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, and for +exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the awful hour that Providence has +now appointed to this nation. Every little measure is a great error, and +every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed +above the mark that we must aim at: everything below it is absolutely +thrown away. + +Except with the addition of the unheard-of insult offered to our +ambassador by his rude expulsion, we are never to forget that the point +on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off was exactly that +which had stifled in its cradle the negotiation we had attempted with +Barthélemy. Each of these transactions concluded with a manifesto upon +our part; but the last of our manifestoes very materially differed from +the first. The first Declaration stated, that "_nothing was left_ but to +prosecute a war _equally just and necessary_." In the second the justice +and necessity of the war is dropped: the sentence importing that nothing +was left but the prosecution of such a war disappears also. Instead of +this resolution to prosecute the war, we sink into a whining lamentation +on the abrupt termination of the treaty. We have nothing left but the +last resource of female weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting +decrepitude,--wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter a sentiment +of vigor;--"his Majesty has only to lament." A poor possession, to be +left to a great monarch! Mark the effect produced on our councils by +continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable +under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and +origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we leave every +one to abound in his own sense. In the minister's speech, glossing on +the Declaration, it is indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are +so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only make a part of our +_consolation_ in the circumstances which we so dolefully lament. We rest +our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation, and the +perfect good faith of those submissions which have been used to persuade +our Regicide enemies to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said +which might not have been full as well said, and much better too, if the +British nation had appeared in the simple character of a penitent +convinced of his errors and offences, and offering, by penances, by +pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever devised by anxious, +restless guilt, to make all the atonement in his miserable power. + +The Declaration ends, as I have before quoted it, with a solemn +voluntary pledge, the most full and the most solemn that ever was given, +of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the very +same course. It requires nothing more of the Regicides than to famish +some sort of excuse, some sort of colorable pretest, for our renewing +the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves the +moment of negotiation, a most important moment, to the choice of the +enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his affairs. +He is to bring it forward at that time when it may best serve to +establish his authority at home and to extend his power abroad, A +dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or +whether it is kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in the +manner we have seen, the field of future conduct ought to be reserved +free and unincumbered to our future discretion. As to the sort of +condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, "that the enemy should be +disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with the spirit +of reconciliation and equity," this phraseology cannot possibly be +considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to fill the +sentence and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same plausible +conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our manifesto on the +rejection of our proposals at Basle. We did not consider those +conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious negotiation +without any sort of regard to them; and there is no new negotiation +which we can possibly open upon fewer indications of conciliation and +equity than were to be discovered when we entered into our last at +Paris. Any of the slightest pretences, any of the most loose, formal, +equivocating expressions, would justify us, under the peroration of this +piece, in again sending the last or some other Lord Malmesbury to Paris. + +I hope I misunderstand this pledge,--or that we shall show no more +regard to it than we have done to all the faith that we have plighted to +vigor and resolution in our former Declaration. If I am to understand +the conclusion of the Declaration to be what unfortunately it seems to +me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without any correspondent +engagement on his side. We seem to have cut ourselves off from any +benefit which an intermediate state of things might furnish to enable us +totally to overturn that power, so little connected with moderation and +justice. By holding out no hope, either to the justly discontented in +France, or to any foreign power, and leaving the recommencement of all +treaty to this identical junto of assassins, we do in effect assure and +guaranty to them the full possession of the rich fruits of their +confiscations, of their murders of men, women, and children, and of all +the multiplied, endless, nameless iniquities by which they have obtained +their power. We guaranty to them the possession of a country, such and +so situated as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented. + +"Well," some will say, "in this case we have only submitted to the +nature of things." The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy +adversary. This might be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty. +But what plea of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty was dead and +gone, in favor of this posthumous Declaration? No necessity has driven +us to _that_ pledge. It is without a counterpart even in expectation. +And what can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary +engagement must produce on the understandings or the fears of men? I +ask, what have the Regicides promised you in return, in case _you_ +should show what _they_ would call dispositions to conciliation and +equity, whilst you are giving that pledge from the throne, and engaging +Parliament to counter-secure it? It is an awful consideration. It was on +the very day of the date of this wonderful pledge,[38] in which we +assumed the Directorial government as lawful, and in which we engaged +ourselves to treat with them whenever they pleased,--it was on that very +day the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbors, +where it had remained four days in perfect quiet. These harbors of the +British dominions are the ports of France. They are of no use but to +protect an enemy from your best allies, the storms of heaven and his own +rashness. Had the West of Ireland been an unportuous coast, the French +naval power would have been undone. The enemy uses the moment for +hostility, without the least regard to your future dispositions of +equity and conciliation. They go out of what were once your harbors, and +they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days they had the full use +of Bantry Bay, and at length their fleet returns from their harbor of +Bantry to their harbor of Brest. Whilst you are invoking the propitious +spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation, they answer you with an +attack. They turn out the pacific bearer of your "how do you dos," Lord +Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and their "thanks for your +obliging inquiries," by their old practised assassin, Hoche. They come +to attack--what? A town, a fort, a naval station? They come to attack +your king, your Constitution, and the very being of that Parliament +which was holding out to them these pledges, together with the +entireness of the empire, the laws, liberties, and properties of all the +people. We know that they meditated the very same invasion, and for the +very same purposes, upon this kingdom, and, had the coast been as +opportune, would have effected it. + +Whilst _you_ are in vain torturing your invention to assure them of +_your_ sincerity and good faith, they have left no doubt concerning +_their_ good faith and _their_ sincerity towards those to whom they have +engaged their honor. To their power they have been true to the only +pledge they have ever yet given to you, or to any of yours: I mean the +solemn engagement which they entered into with the deputation of +traitors who appeared at their bar, from England and from Ireland, in +1792. They have been true and faithful to the engagement which they had +made more largely,--that is, their engagement to give effectual aid to +insurrection and treason, wherever they might appear in the world. We +have seen the British Declaration. This is the counter Declaration of +the Directory. This is the reciprocal pledge which Regicide amity gives +to the conciliatory pledges of kings. But, thank God, such pledges +cannot exist single. They have no counterpart; and if they had, the +enemy's conduct cancels such declarations,--and, I trust, along with +them, cancels everything of mischief and dishonor that they contain. + +There is one thing in this business which appears to be wholly +unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain for +a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains to clear the British +nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate thirst of war? At what +period of time was it that our country has deserved that load of infamy +of which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct +can serve to clear us? If we have deserved this kind of evil fame from +anything we have done in a state of prosperity, I am sure that it is not +an abject conduct in adversity that can clear our reputation. Well is it +known that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in +a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him +who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune. But +it seems it was thought necessary to give some out-of-the-way proofs of +our sincerity, as well as of our freedom from ambition. Is, then, fraud +and falsehood become the distinctive character of Englishmen? Whenever +your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill faith, will you put +it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? +Is his charge equal to the finding of the grand jury of Europe, and +sufficient to put you upon your trial? But on that trial I will defend +the English ministry. I am sorry that on some points I have, on the +principles I have always opposed, so good a defence to make. They were +not the first to begin the war. They did not excite the general +confederacy in Europe, which was so properly formed on the alarm given +by the Jacobinism of France. They did not begin with an hostile +aggression on the Regicides, or any of their allies. These parricides of +their own country, disciplining themselves for foreign by domestic +violence, were the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature, +by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied treaties. Is it not true +that they were the first to declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word +in the declaration from Downing Street concerning their conduct, and +concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false that it is +necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to +expunge the memory of all this perfidy? + +We know that over-laboring a point of this kind has the direct contrary +effect from what we wish. We know that there is a legal presumption +against men, _quando se nimis purgitant_; and if a charge of ambition is +not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud +and perfidy is still less to be washed away by indications of meanness. +Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of +the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate +spirits; and on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the mask +of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain credit for manly +simplicity and a liberal openness of proceeding. It is an erect +countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of +resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and +honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind. Therefore all these +negotiations, and all the declarations with which they were preceded and +followed, can only serve to raise presumptions against that good faith +and public integrity the fame of which to preserve inviolate is so much +the interest and duty of every nation. + +The pledge is an engagement "to all Europe." This is the more +extraordinary, because it is a pledge which no power in Europe, whom I +have yet heard of, has thought proper to require at our hands. I am not +in the secrets of office, and therefore I may be excused for proceeding +upon probabilities and exterior indications. I have surveyed all Europe +from the east to the west, from the north to the south, in search of +this call upon us to purge ourselves of "subtle _duplicity_ and a +_Punic_ style" in our proceedings. I have not heard that his Excellency +the Ottoman ambassador has expressed his doubts of the British sincerity +in our negotiation with the most unchristian republic lately set up at +our door. What sympathy in that quarter may have introduced a +remonstrance upon the want of faith in this nation I cannot positively +say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabic, and possibly is not yet +translated. But none of the nations which compose the old Christian +world have I yet heard as calling upon us for those judicial purgations +and ordeals, by fire and water, which we have chosen to go through;--for +the other great proof, by battle, we seem to decline. + +For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are all those overstrained +and overlabored proceedings in council, in negotiation, and in speeches +in Parliament intended? What royal cabinet is to be enriched with these +high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the sworn enemies of kings +and the meek patience of a British administration? In what heart is it +intended to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications and +disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What nation is unacquainted with +the haughty disposition of the common enemy of all nations? It has been +more than seen, it has been felt,--not only by those who have been the +victims of their imperious rapacity, but, in a degree, by those very +powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be +able to copy it, and with impunity to make new usurpations of their own. + +The King of Prussia has hypothecated in trust to the Regicides his rich +and fertile territories on the Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and +affection to the cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them robbed +with unbounded liberty and with the most levelling equality. The woods +are wasted, the country is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the +people are put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical +government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to +satisfy the Court of Berlin that the Court of London is to give the same +sort of pledge of its sincerity and good faith to the French Directory? +It is not that heart full of sensibility, it is not Lucchesini, the +minister of his Prussian Majesty, the late ally of England, and the +present ally of its enemy, who has demanded this pledge of our +sincerity, as the price of the renewal of the long lease of his sincere +friendship to this kingdom. + +It is not to our enemy, the now faithful ally of Regicide, late the +faithful ally of Great Britain, the Catholic king, that we address our +doleful lamentation: it is not to the _Prince of Peace_, whose +declaration of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general +tranquillity, which our dove-like ambassador, with the olive-branch in +his beak, was saluted with at his entrance into the ark of clean birds +at Paris. + +Surely it is not to the Tetrarch of Sardinia, now the faithful ally of a +power who has seized upon all his fortresses and confiscated the oldest +dominions of his house,--it is not to this once powerful, once +respected, and once cherished ally of Great Britain, that we mean to +prove the sincerity of the peace which we offered to make at his +expense. Or is it to him we are to prove the arrogance of the power who, +under the name of friend, oppresses him, and the poor remains of his +subjects, with all the ferocity of the most cruel enemy? + +It is not to Holland, under the name of an ally, laid under a permanent +military contribution, filled with their double garrison of barbarous +Jacobin troops and ten times more barbarous Jacobin clubs and +assemblies, that we find ourselves obliged to give this pledge. + +Is it to Genoa that we make this kind promise,--a state which the +Regicides were to defend in a favorable neutrality, but whose neutrality +has been, by the gentle influence of Jacobin authority, forced into the +trammels of an alliance,--whose alliance has been secured by the +admission of French garrisons,--and whose peace has been forever +ratified by a forced declaration of war against ourselves? + +It is not the Grand Duke of Tuscany who claims this declaration,--not +the Grand Duke, who for his early sincerity, for his love of peace, and +for his entire confidence in the amity of the assassins of his house, +has been complimented in the British Parliament with the name of "_the +wisest sovereign in Europe_": it is not this pacific Solomon, or his +philosophic, cudgelled ministry, cudgelled by English and by French, +whose wisdom and philosophy between them have placed Leghorn in the +hands of the enemy of the Austrian family, and driven the only +profitable commerce of Tuscany from its only port: it is not this +sovereign, a far more able statesman than any of the Medici in whose +chair he sits, it is not the philosopher Carletti, more ably speculative +than Galileo, more profoundly politic than Machiavel, that call upon us +so loudly to give the same happy proofs of the same good faith to the +republic always the same, always one and indivisible. + +It is not Venice, whose principal cities the enemy has appropriated to +himself, and scornfully desired the state to indemnify itself from the +Emperor, that we wish to convince of the pride and the despotism of an +enemy who loads us with his scoffs and buffets. + +It is not for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our +own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That +prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The +artists of the French Revolution had given their very first essays and +sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far +more cruel "murdering piece" than had over entered into the imagination +of painter or poet. Without ceremony they tore from his cherishing arms +the possessions which he held for five hundred years, undisturbed by all +the ambition of all the ambitious monarchs who during that period have +reigned in France. Is it to him, in whose wrong we have in our late +negotiation ceded his now unhappy countries near the Rhone, lately +amongst the most flourishing (perhaps the most flourishing for their +extent) of all the countries upon earth, that we are to prove the +sincerity of our resolution to make peace with the Republic of +Barbarism? That venerable potentate and pontiff is sunk deep into the +vale of years; he is half disarmed by his peaceful character; his +dominions are more than half disarmed by a peace of two hundred years, +defended as they were, not by force, but by reverence: yet, in all these +straits, we see him display, amidst the recent ruins and the new +defacements of his plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated +piety of the modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient Rome. +Does he, who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to +receive pecuniary compensations for the protection he owed to his people +of Avignon, Carpentras, and the Venaissin,--does he want proofs of our +good disposition to deliver over that people, without any security for +them, or any compensation to their sovereign, to this cruel enemy? Does +he want to be satisfied of the sincerity of our humiliation to France, +who has seen his free, fertile, and happy city and state of Bologna, the +cradle of regenerated law, the seat of sciences and of arts, so +hideously metamorphosed, whilst he was crying to Great Britain for aid, +and offering to purchase that aid at any price? Is it him, who sees that +chosen spot of plenty and delight converted into a Jacobin ferocious +republic, dependent on the homicides of France,--is it him, who, from +the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done a work which defied +the power of the Roman emperors, though with an enthralled world to +labor for them,--is it him, who has drained and cultivated the Pontine +Marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial spirit of conciliation +with those who, in their equity, are restoring Holland again to the +seas, whose maxims poison more than the exhalations of the most deadly +fens, and who turn all the fertilities of Nature and of Art into an +howling desert? Is it to him that we are to demonstrate the good faith +of our submissions to the Cannibal Republic,--to him, who is commanded +to deliver up into their hands Ancona and Civita Vecchia, seats of +commerce raised by the wise and liberal labors and expenses of the +present and late pontiffs, ports not more belonging to the +Ecclesiastical State than to the commerce of Great Britain, thus +wresting from his hands the power of the keys of the centre of Italy, as +before they had taken possession of the keys of the northern part from +the hands of the unhappy King of Sardinia, the natural ally of England? +Is it to him we are to prove our good faith in the peace which we are +soliciting to receive from the hands of his and our robbers, the enemies +of all arts, all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce? + +Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane republics, which have been +forced to bow under the galling yoke of French liberty, that we address +all these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with their +unnatural parents? + +Are we by this Declaration to satisfy the King of Naples, whom we have +left to struggle as he can, after our abdication of Corsica, and the +flight of the whole naval force of England out of the whole circuit of +the Mediterranean, abandoning our allies, our commerce, and the honor of +a nation once the protectress of all other nations, because strengthened +by the independence and enriched by the commerce of them all? By the +express provisions of a recent treaty, we had engaged with the King of +Naples to keep a naval force in the Mediterranean. But, good God! was a +treaty at all necessary for this? The uniform policy of this kingdom as +a state, and eminently so as a commercial state, has at all times led us +to keep a powerful squadron and a commodious naval station in that +central sea, which borders upon and which connects a far greater number +and variety of states, European, Asiatic, and African, than any other. +Without such a naval force, France must become despotic mistress of that +sea, and of all the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must +become vassal to her and dependent on her will. Since we are come no +longer to trust to our force in arms, but to our dexterity in +negotiation, and begin to pay a desperate court to a proud and coy +usurpation, and have finally sent an ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides +at Paris, the King of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed +on our engagements, or on any pledge of our adherence to our nearest and +dearest interests, has been obliged to send his ambassador also to join +the rest of the squalid tribe of the representatives of degraded kings. +This monarch, surely, does not want any proof of the sincerity of our +amicable dispositions to that amicable republic, into whose arms he has +been given by our desertion of him. + +To look to the powers of the North.--It is not to the Danish ambassador, +insolently treated in his own character and in ours, that we are to give +proofs of the Regicide arrogance, and of our disposition to submit to +it. + +With regard to Sweden I cannot say much. The French influence is +struggling with her independence; and they who consider the manner in +which the ambassador of that power was treated not long since at Paris, +and the manner in which the father of the present King of Sweden +(himself the victim of regicide principles and passions) would have +looked on the present assassins of France, will not be very prompt to +believe that the young King of Sweden has made this kind of requisition +to the King of Great Britain, and has given this kind of auspice of his +new government. + +I speak last of the most important of all. It certainly was not the late +Empress of Russia at whose instance we have given this pledge. It is not +the new Emperor, the inheritor of so much glory, and placed in a +situation of so much delicacy and difficulty for the preservation of +that inheritance, who calls on England, the natural ally of his +dominions, to deprive herself of her power of action, and to bind +herself to France. France at no time, and in none of its fashions, least +of all in its last, has been ever looked upon as the friend either of +Russia or of Great Britain. Everything good, I trust, is to be expected +from this prince,--whatever may be without authority given out of an +influence over his mind possessed by that only potentate from whom he +has anything to apprehend or with whom he has much even to discuss. + +This sovereign knows, I have no doubt, and feels, on what sort of bottom +is to be laid the foundation of a Russian throne. He knows what a rock +of native granite is to form the pedestal of his statue who is to +emulate Peter the Great. His renown will be in continuing with ease and +safety what his predecessor was obliged to achieve through mighty +struggles. He is sensible that his business is not to innovate, out to +secure and to establish,--that reformations at this day are attempts at +best of ambiguous utility. He will revere his father with the piety of +a son, but in his government he will imitate the policy of his mother. +His father, with many excellent qualities, had a short reign,--because, +being a native Russian, he was unfortunately advised to act in the +spirit of a foreigner. His mother reigned over Russia three-and-thirty +years with the greatest glory,--because, with the disadvantage of being +a foreigner born, she made herself a Russian. A wise prince like the +present will improve his country; but it will be cautiously and +progressively, upon its own native groundwork of religion, manners, +habitudes, and alliances. If I prognosticate right, it is not the +Emperor of Russia that ever will call for extravagant proofs of our +desire to reconcile ourselves to the irreconcilable enemy of all +thrones. + +I do not know why I should not include America among the European +powers,--because she is of European origin, and has not yet, like +France, destroyed all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages +which she drew from Europe. As long as that Europe shall have any +possessions either in the southern or the northern parts of that +America, even separated as it is by the ocean, it must be considered as +a part of the European system. It is not America, menaced with internal +ruin from the attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of liberty in that +country,--it is not America, whose independence is directly attacked by +the French, the enemies of the independence of all nations, that calls +upon us to give security by disarming ourselves in a treacherous peace. +By such a peace, we shall deliver the Americans, their liberty, and +their order, without resource, to the mercy of their imperious allies, +who will have peace or neutrality with no state which is not ready to +join her in war against England. + +Having run round the whole circle of the European system, wherever it +acts, I must affirm that all the foreign powers who are not leagued with +France for the utter destruction of all balance through Europe and +throughout the world demand other assurances from this kingdom than are +given in that Declaration. They require assurances, not of the sincerity +of our good dispositions towards the usurpation in France, but of our +affection towards the college of the ancient states of Europe, and +pledges of our constancy, our fidelity, and of our fortitude in +resisting to the last the power that menaces them all. The apprehension +from which they wish to be delivered cannot be from anything they dread +in the ambition of England. Our power must be their strength. They hope +more from us than they fear. I am sure the only ground of their hope, +and of our hope, is in the greatness of mind hitherto shown by the +people of this nation, and its adherence to the unalterable principles +of its ancient policy, whatever government may finally prevail in +France. I have entered into this detail of the wishes and expectations +of the European powers, in order to point out more clearly not so much +what their disposition as (a consideration of far greater importance) +what their situation demands, according as that situation is related to +the Regicide Republic and to this kingdom. + +Then, if it is not to satisfy the foreign powers we make this assurance, +to what power at home is it that we pay all this humiliating court? Not +to the old Whigs or to the ancient Tories of this kingdom,--if any +memory of such ancient divisions still exists amongst us. To which of +the principles of these parties is this assurance agreeable? Is it to +the Whigs we are to recommend the aggrandizement of France, and the +subversion of the balance of power? Is it to the Tories we are to +recommend our eagerness to cement ourselves with the enemies of royalty +and religion? But if these parties, which by their dissensions have so +often distracted the kingdom, which by their union have once saved it, +and which by their collision and mutual resistance have preserved the +variety of this Constitution in its unity, be (as I believe they are) +nearly extinct by the growth of new ones, which have their roots in the +present circumstances of the times, I wish to know to which of these new +descriptions this Declaration is addressed. It can hardly be to those +persons who, in the new distribution of parties, consider the +conservation in England of the ancient order of things as necessary to +preserve order everywhere else, and who regard the general conservation +of order in other countries as reciprocally necessary to preserve the +same state of things in these islands. That party never can wish to see +Great Britain pledge herself to give the lead and the ground of +advantage and superiority to the France of to-day, in any treaty which +is to settle Europe. I insist upon it, that, so far from expecting such +an engagement, they are generally stupefied and confounded with it. That +the other party, which demands great changes here, and is so pleased to +see them everywhere else, which party I call Jacobin, that this faction +does, from the bottom of its heart, approve the Declaration, and does +erect its crest upon the engagement, there can be little doubt. To them +it may be addressed with propriety, for it answers their purposes in +every point. + +The party in opposition within the House of Lords and Commons it is +irreverent, and half a breach of privilege, (far from my thoughts,) to +consider as Jacobin. This party has always denied the existence of such +a faction, and has treated the machinations of those whom you and I call +Jacobins as so many forgeries and fictions of the minister and his +adherents, to find a pretext for destroying freedom and setting up an +arbitrary power in this kingdom. However, whether this minority has a +leaning towards the French system or only a charitable toleration of +those who lean that way, it is certain that they have always attacked +the sincerity of the minister in the same modes, and on the very same +grounds, and nearly in the same terms, with the Directory. It must +therefore be at the tribunal of the minority (from the whole tenor of +the speech) that the minister appeared to consider himself obliged to +purge himself of duplicity. It was at their bar that he held up his +hand; it was on their _sellette_ that he seemed to answer +interrogatories; it was on their principles that he defended his whole +conduct. They certainly take what the French call the _haut du pavé_. +They have loudly called for the negotiation. It was accorded to them. +They engaged their support of the war with vigor, in case peace was not +granted on honorable terms. Peace was not granted on any terms, +honorable or shameful. Whether these judges, few in number, but powerful +in jurisdiction, are satisfied,--whether they to whom this new pledge is +hypothecated have redeemed their own,--whether they have given one +particle more of their support to ministry, or even, favored them with +their good opinion or their candid construction, I leave it to those who +recollect that memorable debate to determine. + +The fact is, that neither this Declaration, nor the negotiation which is +its subject, could serve any one good purpose, foreign or domestic; it +could conduce to no end, either with regard to allies or neutrals. It +tends neither to bring back the misled, nor to give courage to the +fearful, nor to animate and confirm those who are hearty and zealous in +the cause. + +I hear it has been said (though I can scarcely believe it) by a +distinguished person, in an assembly where, if there be less of the +torrent and tempest of eloquence, more guarded expression is to be +expected, that, indeed, there was no just ground of hope in this +business from the beginning. + +It is plain that this noble person, however conversant in negotiation, +having been employed in no less than four embassies, and in two +hemispheres, and in one of those negotiations having fully experienced +what it was to proceed to treaty without previous encouragement, was not +at all consulted in this experiment. For his Majesty's principal +minister declared, on the very same day, in another House, "his +Majesty's deep and sincere regret at its unfortunate and abrupt +termination, so different from the wishes and _hopes_ that were +entertained,"--and in other parts of the speech speaks of this abrupt +termination as a great disappointment, and as a fall from sincere +endeavors and sanguine expectation. Here are, indeed, sentiments +diametrically opposite, as to the hopes with which the negotiation was +commenced and carried on; and what is curious is, the grounds of the +hopes on the one side and the despair on the other are exactly the same. +The logical conclusion from the common premises is, indeed, in favor of +the noble lord; for they are agreed that the enemy was far from giving +the least degree of countenance to any such hopes, and that they +proceeded in spite of every discouragement which the enemy had thrown in +their way. But there is another material point in which they do not seem +to differ: that is to say, the result of the desperate experiment of the +noble lord, and of the promising attempt of the great minister, in +satisfying the people of England, and in causing discontent to the +people of France,--or, as the minister expresses it, "in uniting England +and in dividing France." + +For my own part, though I perfectly agreed with the noble lord that the +attempt was desperate, so desperate, indeed, as to deserve _his_ name of +an experiment, yet no fair man can possibly doubt that the minister was +perfectly sincere in his proceeding, and that, from his ardent wishes +for peace with the Regicides, he was led to conceive hopes which were +founded rather in his vehement desires than in any rational ground of +political speculation. Convinced as I am of this, it had been better, in +my humble opinion, that persons of great name and authority had +abstained from those topics which had been used to call the minister's +sincerity into doubt, and had not adopted the sentiments of the +Directory upon the subject of all our negotiations: for the noble lord +expressly says that the experiment was made for the satisfaction of the +country. The Directory says exactly the same thing. Upon granting, in +consequence of our supplications, the passport to Lord Malmesbury, in +order to remove all sort of hope from its success, they charged all our +previous steps, even to that moment of submissive demand to be admitted +to their presence, on duplicity and perfidy, and assumed that the object +of all the steps we had taken was that "of justifying the continuance of +the war in the eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium +of it upon the French." "The English nation" (said they) "supports +impatiently the continuance of the war, and _a reply must be made to its +complaints and its reproaches_; the Parliament is about to be opened, +_and the mouths of the orators who will declaim against the war must be +shut; the demands for new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these +results, it is necessary to be able to advance that the French +government refuses every reasonable proposition for peace_." I am sorry +that the language of the friends to ministry and the enemies to mankind +should be so much in unison. + +As to the fact in which these parties are so well agreed, that the +experiment ought to have been made for the satisfaction of this country, +(meaning the country of England,) it were well to be wished that persons +of eminence would cease to make themselves representatives of the people +of England, without a letter of attorney, or any other act of +procuration. In legal construction, the sense of the people of England +is to be collected from the House of Commons; and though I do not deny +the possibility of an abuse of this trust as well as any other, yet I +think, without the most weighty reasons and in the most urgent +exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the House speaks +anything contrary to the sense of the people, or that the representative +is silent, when the sense of the constituent, strongly, decidedly, and +upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic of moment. If +there is a doubt whether the House of Commons represents perfectly the +whole commons of Great Britain, (I think there is none,) there can be no +question but that the Lords and the Commons together represent the sense +of the whole people to the crown and to the world. Thus it is, when we +speak legally and constitutionally. In a great measure it is equally +true, when we speak prudentially. But I do not pretend to assert that +there are no other principles to guide discretion than those which are +or can be fixed by some law or some constitution: yet before the legally +presumed sense of the people should be superseded by a supposition of +one more real, (as in all cases where a legal presumption is to be +ascertained,) some strong proofs ought to exist of a contrary +disposition in the people at large, and some decisive indications of +their desire upon this subject. There can be no question, that, +previously to a direct message from the crown, neither House of +Parliament did indicate anything like a wish for such advances as we +have made or such negotiations as we have carried on. The Parliament has +assented to ministry; it is not ministry that has obeyed the impulse of +Parliament. The people at large have their organs through which they can +speak to Parliament and to the crown by a respectful petition, and +though not with absolute authority, yet with weight, they can instruct +their representatives. The freeholders and other electors in this +kingdom have another and a surer mode of expressing their sentiments +concerning the conduct which is held by members of Parliament. In the +middle of these transactions this last opportunity has been held out to +them. In all these points of view I positively assert that the people +have nowhere and in no way expressed their wish of throwing themselves +and their sovereign at the feet of a wicked and rancorous foe, to +supplicate mercy, which, from the nature of that foe, and from the +circumstances of affairs, we had no sort of ground to expect. It is +undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the +inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they +do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to +approach them. The petty interests of such gentlemen, their low +conceptions of things, their fears arising from the danger to which the +very arduous and critical situation of public affairs may expose their +places, their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of +a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in +Parliament,--all these causes trouble and confuse the representations +which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. If +ministers, instead of following the great indications of the +Constitution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a +cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels of imprudent +timidity for the wisdom of a nation. + +I well remember, that, when the fortune of the war began (and it began +pretty early) to turn, as it is common and natural, we were dejected by +the losses that had been sustained, and with the doubtful issue of the +contests that were foreseen. But not a word was uttered that supposed +peace upon any proper terms was in our power, or therefore that it +should be in our desire. As usual, with or without reason, we +criticized the conduct of the war, and compared our fortunes with our +measures. The mass of the nation went no further. For I suppose that you +always understood me as speaking of that very preponderating part of the +nation which had always been equally adverse to the French principles +and to the general progress of their Revolution throughout +Europe,--considering the final success of their arms and the triumph of +their principles as one and the same thing. + +The first means that were used, by any one professing our principles, to +change the minds of this party upon that subject, appeared in a small +pamphlet circulated with considerable industry. It was commonly given to +the noble person himself who has passed judgment upon all hopes from +negotiation, and justified our late abortive attempt only as an +experiment made to satisfy the country; and yet that pamphlet led the +way in endeavoring to dissatisfy that very country with the continuance +of the war, and to raise in the people the most sanguine expectations +from some such course of negotiation as has been fatally pursued. This +leads me to suppose (and I am glad to have reason for supposing) that +there was no foundation for attributing the performance in question to +that author; but without mentioning his name in the title-page, it +passed for his, and does still pass uncontradicted. It was entitled, +"Some Remarks on the Apparent Circumstances of the War in the Fourth +Week of October, 1795." + +This sanguine little king's-fisher, (not prescient of the storm, as by +his instinct he ought to be,) appearing at that uncertain season before +the rigs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the +inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over the +seas, and was busy in building its halcyon nest, as if the angry ocean +had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very unfortunately, this +auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the throne in the very +spirit and principles of that pamphlet. + +I say nothing of the newspapers, which are undoubtedly in the interest, +and which are supposed by some to be directly or indirectly under the +influence of ministers, and which, with less authority than the pamphlet +I speak of, had indeed for some time before held a similar language, in +direct contradiction to their more early tone: insomuch that I can speak +it with a certain assurance, that very many, who wished to +administration as well as you and I do, thought, that, in giving their +opinion in favor of this peace, they followed the opinion of +ministry;--they were conscious that they did not lead it. My inference, +therefore, is this: that the negotiation, whatever its merits may be, in +the general principle and policy of undertaking it, is, what every +political measure in general ought to be, the sole work of +administration; and that, if it was an experiment to satisfy anybody, it +was to satisfy those whom the ministers were in the daily habit of +condemning, and by whom they were daily condemned,--I mean the _leaders_ +of the _opposition_ in _Parliament_. I am certain that the ministers +were then, and are now, invested with the fullest confidence of the +major part of the nation, to pursue such measures of peace or war as the +nature of things shall suggest as most adapted to the public safety. It +is in this light, therefore, as a measure which ought to have been +avoided and ought not to be repeated, that I take the liberty of +discussing the merits of this system of Regicide negotiations. It is not +a matter of light experiment, that leaves us where it found us. Peace or +war are the great hinges upon which the very being of nations turns. +Negotiations are the means of making peace or preventing war, and are +therefore of more serious importance than almost any single event of war +can possibly be. + +At the very outset, I do not hesitate to affirm, that this country in +particular, and the public law in general, have suffered more by this +negotiation of experiment than by all the battles together that we have +lost from the commencement of this century to this time, when it touches +so nearly to its close. I therefore have the misfortune not to coincide +in opinion with the great statesman who set on foot a negotiation, as he +said, "in spite of the constant opposition he had met with from Prance." +He admits, "that the difficulty in this negotiation became most +seriously increased, indeed, by the situation in which we were placed, +and the manner in which alone the enemy would _admit_ of a negotiation." +This situation so described, and so truly described, rendered our +solicitation not only degrading, but from the very outset evidently +hopeless. + +I find it asserted, and even a merit taken for it, "that this country +surmounted every difficulty of form and etiquette which the enemy had +thrown in our way." An odd way of surmounting a difficulty, by cowering +under it! I find it asserted that an heroic resolution had been taken, +and avowed in Parliament, previous to this negotiation, "that no +consideration of etiquette should stand in the way of it." + +Etiquette, if I understand rightly the term, which in any extent is of +modern usage, had its original application to those ceremonial and +formal observances practised at courts, which had been established by +long usage, in order to preserve the sovereign power from the rude +intrusion of licentious familiarity, as well as to preserve majesty +itself from a disposition to consult its ease at the expense of its +dignity. The term came afterwards to have a greater latitude, and to be +employed to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions +between sovereign states. + +In the more limited, as well as in the larger sense of the term, without +knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it +is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve +decorum in character and order in business. I readily admit that nothing +tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more than a +mutual disposition in the parties treating to waive all ceremony. But +the use of this temporary suspension of the recognized modes of respect +consists in its being mutual, and in the spirit of conciliation in which +all ceremony is laid aside. On the contrary, when one of the parties to +a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in these ceremonies, and will +not on his side abate a single punctilio, and that all the concessions +are upon one side only, the party so conceding does by this act place +himself in a relation of inferiority, and thereby fundamentally subverts +that equality which is of the very essence of all treaty. + +After this formal act of degradation, it was but a matter of course that +gross insult should be offered to our ambassador, and that he should +tamely submit to it. He found himself provoked to complain of the +atrocious libels against his public character and his person which +appeared in a paper under the avowed patronage of that government. The +Regicide Directory, on this complaint, did not recognize the paper: and +that was all. They did not punish, they did not dismiss, they did not +even reprimand the writer. As to our ambassador, this total want of +reparation for the injury was passed by under the pretence of despising +it. + +In this but too serious business, it is not possible here to avoid a +smile. Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a +calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend +that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him from +above. All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these deliberate +submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the situation in +which we had placed ourselves: a situation wherein the insults were such +as Nature would not enable us to bear, and circumstances would not +permit us to resent. + +It was not long, however, after this contempt of contempt upon the part +of our ambassador, (who by the way represented his sovereign,) that a +new object was furnished for displaying sentiments of the same kind, +though the case was infinitely aggravated. Not the ambassador, but the +king himself, was libelled and insulted,--libelled, not by a creature of +the Directory, but by the Directory itself. At least, so Lord Malmesbury +understood it, and so he answered it in his note of the 12th November, +1796, in which he says,--"With regard to the _offensive and injurious_ +insinuations which are contained in that paper, and which are only +calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of the accommodation which +the French government professes to desire, THE KING HAS DEEMED IT FAR +BENEATH HIS DIGNITY to permit an answer to be made to them on his part, +in any manner whatsoever." + +I am of opinion, that, if his Majesty had kept aloof from that wash and +offscouring of everything that is low and barbarous in the world, it +might be well thought unworthy of his dignity to take notice of such +scurrilities: they must be considered as much the natural expression of +that kind of animal as it is the expression of the feelings of a dog to +bark. But when the king had been advised to recognize not only the +monstrous composition as a sovereign power, but, in conduct, to admit +something in it like a superiority,--when the bench of Regicide was made +at least coordinate with his throne, and raised upon a platform full as +elevated, this treatment could not be passed by under the appearance of +despising it. It would not, indeed, have been proper to keep up a war of +the same kind; but an immediate, manly, and decided resentment ought to +have been the consequence. We ought not to have waited for the +disgraceful dismissal of our ambassador. There are cases in which we may +pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some sense in it, _Non omnibus +dormio_. We might, however, have seemed ignorant of the affront; but +what was the fact? Did we dissemble or pass it by in silence? When +dignity is talked of, a language which I did not expect to hear in such +a transaction, I must say, what all the world must feel, that it was not +for the king's dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it. This +mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of the correspondence between +sovereign powers. + +This was far from the only ill effect of the policy of degradation. The +state of inferiority in which we were placed, in this vain attempt at +treaty, drove us headlong from error into error, and led us to wander +far away, not only from all the paths which have been beaten in the old +course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways +even of the most common prudence. Against all rules, after we had met +nothing but rebuffs in return to all our proposals, we made _two +confidential communications_ to those in whom we had no confidence and +who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse, we were fully aware of +the madness of the step we were taking. Ambassadors are not sent to a +hostile power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make candid, +confidential, and amicable communications. Hitherto the world has +considered it as the duty of an ambassador in such a situation to be +cautious, guarded, dexterous, and circumspect. It is true that mutual +confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the +rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level. +When, in the last century, Temple and De Witt negotiated the famous +Triple Alliance, their candor, their freedom, and the most +_confidential_ disclosures were the result of true policy. Accordingly, +in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the +United Provinces, the treaty was concluded in three days. It did not +take a much longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) +through a still more complicated transaction,--that of the _Grand +Alliance_. But in the present case, this unparalleled candor, this +unpardonable want of reserve, produced, what might have been expected +from it, the most serious evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole +plan of our demands and concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries. + +And first, it induced us to lay down the basis of a treaty which itself +had nothing to rest upon. It seems, we thought we had gained a great +point in getting this basis admitted,--that is, a basis of mutual +compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace, and +with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a +plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be proposed; because +these arrangements were not, in effect, to make the basis, but a part of +the superstructure, of the fabric of pacification. The order of things +would thus be reversed. The mutual disposition to peace would form the +reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or +the other might be constructed. This truly fundamental base being once +laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter +might be easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a view to +the establishment of a fair balance of power in Europe, had been made +the real basis of the treaty, the reciprocal value of the compensations +could not be estimated according to their proportion to each other, but +according to their proportionate relation to that end: to that great end +the whole would be subservient. The effect of the treaty would be in a +manner secured before the detail of particulars was begun, and for a +plain reason,--because the hostile spirit on both sides had been +conjured down; but if, in the full fury and unappeased rancor of war, a +little traffic is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the +consequence to those who endeavor to open that kind of petty commerce. + +To illustrate what I have said, I go back no further than to the two +last Treaties of Paris, and to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which +preceded the first of these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or +fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticize any of them. My opinions +upon some particulars of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 are published in a +pamphlet[39] which your recollection will readily bring into your view. +I recur to them only to show that their basis had not been, and never +could have been, a mere dealing of truck and barter, but that the +parties being willing, from common fatigue or common suffering, to put +an end to a war the first object of which had either been obtained or +despaired of, the lesser objects were not thought worth the price of +further contest. The parties understanding one another, so much was +given away without considering from whose budget it came, not as the +value of the objects, but as the value of peace to the parties might +require. + +At the last Treaty of Paris, the subjugation of America being despaired +of on the part of Great Britain, and the independence of America being +looked upon as secure on the part of France, the main cause of the war +was removed; and then the conquests which France had made upon us (for +we had made none of importance upon her) were surrendered with +sufficient facility. Peace was restored as peace. In America the parties +stood as they were possessed. A limit was to be settled, but settled as +a limit to secure that peace, and not at all on a system of equivalents, +for which, as we then stood with the United States, there were little or +no materials. + +At the preceding Treaty of Paris, I mean that of 1763, there was +nothing at all on which to fix a basis of compensation from reciprocal +cession of conquests. They were all on one side. The question with us +was not what we were to receive, and on what consideration, but what we +were to keep for indemnity or to cede for peace. Accordingly, no place +being left for barter, sacrifices were made on our side to peace; and we +surrendered to the French their most valuable possessions in the West +Indies without any equivalent. The rest of Europe fell soon after into +its ancient order; and the German war ended exactly where it had begun. + +The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was built upon a similar basis. All the +conquests in Europe had been made by France. She had subdued the +Austrian Netherlands, and broken open the gates of Holland. We had taken +nothing in the West Indies; and Cape Breton was a trifling business +indeed. France gave up all for peace. The Allies had given up all that +was ceded at Utrecht. Louis the Fourteenth made all, or nearly all, the +cessions at Ryswick, and at Nimeguen. In all those treaties, and in all +the preceding, as well as in the others which intervened, the question +never had been that of barter. The balance of power had been ever +assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times and by all +powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on the more or +less inclination of that balance. + +This general balance was regarded in four principal points of view: the +GREAT MIDDLE BALANCE, which comprehended Great Britain, France, and +Spain; the BALANCE OF THE NORTH; the BALANCE, external and internal, of +GERMANY; and the BALANCE OF ITALY. In all those systems of balance, +England was the power to whose custody it was thought it might be most +safely committed. + +France, as she happened to stand, secured the balance or endangered it. +Without question, she had been long the security for the balance of +Germany, and, under her auspices, the system, if not formed, had been at +least perfected. She was so in some measure with regard to Italy, more +than occasionally. She had a clear interest in the balance of the North, +and had endeavored to preserve it. But when we began to treat with the +present France, or, more properly, to prostrate ourselves to her, and to +try if we should be admitted to ransom our allies, upon a system of +mutual concession and compensation, we had not one of the usual +facilities. For, first, we had not the smallest indication of a desire +for peace on the part of the enemy, but rather the direct contrary. Men +do not make sacrifices to obtain what they do not desire: and as for the +balance of power, it was so far from being admitted by France, either on +the general system, or with regard to the particular systems that I have +mentioned, that, in the whole body of their authorized or encouraged +reports and discussions upon the theory of the diplomatic system, they +constantly rejected the very idea of the balance of power, and treated +it as the true cause of all the wars and calamities that had afflicted +Europe; and their practice was correspondent to the dogmatic positions +they had laid down. The Empire and the Papacy it was their great object +to destroy; and this, now openly avowed and steadfastly acted upon, +might have been discerned with very little acuteness of sight, from the +very first dawnings of the Revolution, to be the main drift of their +policy: for they professed a resolution to destroy everything which can +hold states together by the tie of opinion. + +Exploding, therefore, all sorts of balances, they avow their design to +erect themselves into a new description of empire, which is not grounded +on any balance, but forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of which France +is to be the head and the guardian. The law of this their empire is +anything rather than the public law of Europe, the ancient conventions +of its several states, or the ancient opinions which assign to them +superiority or preëminence of any sort, or any other kind of connection +in virtue of ancient relations. They permit, and that is all, the +temporary existence of some of the old communities: but whilst they give +to these tolerated states this temporary respite, in order to secure +them in a condition of real dependence on themselves, they invest them +on every side by a body of republics, formed on the model, and dependent +ostensibly, as well as substantially, on the will of the mother republic +to which they owe their origin. These are to be so many garrisons to +check and control the states which are to be permitted to remain on the +old model until they are ripe for a change. It is in this manner that +France, on her new system, means to form an universal empire, by +producing an universal revolution. By this means, forming a new code of +communities according to what she calls the natural rights of man and of +states, she pretends to secure eternal peace to the world, guarantied by +her generosity and justice, which are to grow with the extent of her +power. To talk of the balance of power to the governors of such a +country was a jargon which they could not understand even through an +interpreter. Before men can transact any affair, they must have a +common language to speak, and some common, recognized principles on +which they can argue; otherwise all is cross purpose and confusion. It +was, therefore, an essential preliminary to the whole proceeding, to fix +whether the balance of power, the liberties and laws of the Empire, and +the treaties of different belligerent powers in past times, when they +put an end to hostilities, were to be considered as the basis of the +present negotiation. + +The whole of the enemy's plan was known when Lord Malmesbury was sent +with his scrap of equivalents to Paris. Yet, in this unfortunate attempt +at negotiation, instead of fixing these points, and assuming the balance +of power and the peace of Europe as the basis to which all cessions on +all sides were to be subservient, our solicitor for peace was directed +to reverse that order. He was directed to make mutual concessions, on a +mere comparison of their marketable value, the base of treaty. The +balance of power was to be thrown in as an inducement, and a sort of +make-weight to supply the manifest deficiency, which must stare him and +the world in the face, between those objects which he was to require the +enemy to surrender and those which he had to offer as a fair equivalent. + +To give any force to this inducement, and to make it answer even the +secondary purpose of equalizing equivalents having in themselves no +natural proportionate value, it supposed that the enemy, contrary to the +most notorious fact, did admit this balance of power to be of some +value, great or small; whereas it is plain, that, in the enemy's +estimate of things, the consideration of the balance of power, as we +have said before, was so far from going in diminution of the value of +what the Directory was desired to surrender, or of giving an additional +price to our objects offered in exchange, that the hope of the utter +destruction of that balance became a new motive to the junto of +Regicides for preserving, as a means for realizing that hope, what we +wished them to abandon. + +Thus stood the basis of the treaty, on laying the first stone of the +foundation. At the very best, upon our side, the question stood upon a +mere naked bargain and sale. Unthinking people here triumphed, when they +thought they had obtained it; whereas, when obtained as a basis of a +treaty, it was just the worst we could possibly have chosen. As to our +offer to cede a most unprofitable, and, indeed, beggarly, chargeable +counting-house or two in the East Indies, we ought not to presume that +they would consider this as anything else than a mockery. As to anything +of real value, we had nothing under heaven to offer, (for which we were +not ourselves in a very dubious struggle,) except the island of +Martinico only. When this object was to be weighed against the +Directorial conquests, merely as an object of a value at market, the +principle of barter became perfectly ridiculous: a single quarter in the +single city of Amsterdam was worth ten Martinicos, and would have sold +for many more years' purchase in any market overt in Europe. How was +this gross and glaring defect in the objects of exchange to be supplied? +It was to be made up by argument. And what was that argument? The +extreme utility of possessions in the West Indies to the augmentation of +the naval power of France. A very curious topic of argument to be +proposed and insisted on by an ambassador of Great Britain! It is +directly and plainly this:--"Come, we know that of all things you wish a +naval power, and it is natural you should, who wish to destroy the very +sources of the British greatness, to overpower our marine, to destroy +our commerce, to eradicate our foreign influence, and to lay us open to +an invasion, which at one stroke may complete our servitude and ruin and +expunge us from among the nations of the earth. Here I have it in my +budget, the infallible arcanum for that purpose. You are but novices in +the art of naval resources. Let you have the West Indies back, and your +maritime preponderance is secured, for which you would do well to be +moderate in your demands upon the Austrian Netherlands." + +Under any circumstances, this is a most extraordinary topic of argument; +but it is rendered by much the more unaccountable, when we are told, +that, if the war has been diverted from the great object of establishing +society and good order in Europe by destroying the usurpation in France, +this diversion was made to increase the naval resources and power of +Great Britain, and to lower, if not annihilate, those of the marine of +France. I leave all this to the very serious reflection of every +Englishman. + +This basis was no sooner admitted than the rejection of a treaty upon +that sole foundation was a thing of course. The enemy did not think it +worthy of a discussion, as in truth it was not; and immediately, as +usual, they began, in the most opprobrious and most insolent manner, to +question our sincerity and good faith: whereas, in truth, there was no +one symptom wanting of openness and fair dealing. What could be more +fair than to lay open to an enemy all that you wished to obtain, and the +price you meant to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your +ingenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his honest heart to +you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a +fault of another kind: there was much weakness,--there was an eager and +impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of +attempting the connection by any means, however manifestly feeble and +ineffectual. The event was committed to chance,--that is, to such a +manifestation of the desire of France for peace as would induce the +Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. +Accordingly, the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly +reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury had set his foot on shore +at Calais. + +It has been said that the Directory was compelled against its will to +accept the basis of barter (as if that had tended to accelerate the work +of pacification!) by the voice of all France. Had this been the case, +the Directors would have continued to listen to that voice to which it +seems they were so obedient: they would have proceeded with the +negotiation upon that basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke +up the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to +violate all the principles of treaty, and weakly, rashly, and +unguardedly to expose, without any counter proposition, the whole of our +project with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without holding out +the smallest hope that they would admit the smallest part of our +pretensions. + +When they had thus drawn from us all that they could draw out, they +expelled Lord Malmesbury, and they appealed, for the propriety of their +conduct, to that very France which we thought proper to suppose had +driven them to this fine concession: and I do not find that in either +division of the family of thieves, the younger branch, or the elder, or +in any other body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited, or any +tumult raised, or anything like the virulence of opposition which was +shown to the king's ministers here, on account of that transaction. + +Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the +Directory will have that tenderness for the carcass of their country, by +whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin, they +are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more +moderate and reasonable way of thinking and acting. In the name of +wonder, what has inspired our ministry with this hope any more than with +their former expectations? + +Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow +out of the usual grounds of despair? What is there to encourage them, in +the conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, +from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in +which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? Are they +not the identical men who, from the base and sordid vices which belonged +to their original place and situation, aspired to the dignity of +crimes,--and from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most +knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery, sacrilege, and +assassination in all its forms, till at last they had imbrued their +impious hands in the blood of their sovereign? Is it from these men that +we are to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country, and this +sacred regard for the peace and happiness of all nations? + +But it seems there is still another lurking hope, akin to that which +duped us so egregiously before, when our delightful basis was accepted: +we still flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will compel +this Directory to more moderation. Whence does this hope arise? What +public voice is there in France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, +since this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, +military force to guard them, are indulged in a sufficient liberty of +writing; and some of them write well, undoubtedly. But the world knows +that in France there is no public,--that the country is composed but of +two descriptions, audacious tyrants and trembling slaves. The contests +between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned in +France. The only thing which there appears like spirit is amongst their +late associates, and fastest friends of the Directory,--the more furious +and untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented member of the +faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens +every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of +their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows, who now +exercise a more regular and therefore a somewhat less ferocious tyranny. +Most of the slaves choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to +those who are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like wolves, are a +little more tame from being a little less hungry, in preference to an +irruption of the famished devourers who are prowling and howling about +the fold. + +This circumstance assures some degree of permanence to the power of +those whom we know to be permanently our rancorous and implacable +enemies. But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we +have ourselves given a further and far better security, by rendering the +cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but +unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, +after the miserable slaughters which have been made in that body, after +all their losses by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert +themselves against the force of the usurpation evidently countenanced +and upheld by those very princes who had called them to arm for the +support of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing these fleeting +hopes of ours from point to point of the political horizon, are they at +last really found? Not where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen +used to be placed, in our own courage and in our own virtues, but in the +moderation and virtue of the most atrocious monsters that have ever +disgraced and plagued mankind. + +The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same +as in the case of all other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded +on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration. Necessity, as it has +no law, so it has no shame. But moral necessity is not like +metaphysical, or even physical. In that category it is a word of loose +signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds. To the +low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes an invincible necessity. +"The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way, and I shall be +devoured in the streets." But when the necessity pleaded is not in the +nature of things, but in the vices of him who alleges it, the whining +tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignation: +because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable existence, +without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they +aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would +draw from the compassion of others what men ought to owe to their own +spirit and their own exertions. + +I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade ourselves, it is the +degradation which will subject us to the yoke of necessity, and not that +it is necessity which has brought on our degradation. In this same +chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open +subscription of last year, with all its circumstances, must have given +us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly +discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a lame negotiation +abroad, and that the whiff and wind of it must at once have disposed the +enemies of all tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the face +of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had the direct +contrary effect; for very soon after the loan became public at Paris, +the negotiation ended, and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My +view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from the influence +which it might have on the enemy, but on account of the temper which it +indicated in our own people. This alone is a consideration of any +importance; because all calculation formed upon a supposed relation of +the habitudes of others to our own, under the present circumstances, is +weak and fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by what we are, +or by what we wish him to be, but by what we must know he actually is: +unless we choose to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of +all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all his actions. We may +be deluded; but we cannot pretend that we have been disappointed. The +old rule of _Ne te quæsiveris extra_ is a precept as available in policy +as it is in morals. Let us leave off speculating upon the disposition +and the wants of the enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let us +ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are our means of discharging +them. In what heart are you at home? How far may an English minister +confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the force of an English +people? What does he find us, when he puts us to the proof of what +English interest and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an answer +to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The +effect on the enemy is not in what he may speculate on our resources, +but in what he shall feel from our arms. + +The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond a doubt three capital +points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the +future liberty and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the loan +demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of +this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the +maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and its +glory to hold and to watch over,--the balance of power throughout the +Christian world. Secondly, it brings to light what, under the most +discouraging appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its ancient +physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit +is still alive in the British nation. It proves that for their +application there is a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy +above them. It proves that there exists, though not always visible, a +spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually +invoked,--a spirit which will give no equivocal response, but such as +will hearten the timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating +prudence,--a spirit which will be ready to perform all the tasks that +shall be imposed upon it by public honor. Thirdly, the loan displays an +abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his +present servants, in the prosecution of a war which the people consider, +not as a war made on the suggestion of ministers, and to answer the +purposes of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war of their +own, and in defence of that very property which they expend for its +support,--a war for that order of things from which everything valuable +that they possess is derived, and in which order alone it can possibly +be maintained. + +I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from which I draw +inferences so favorable to the spirit of the people and to its just +expectation from ministers, that the eighteen million loan is to be +considered in no other light than as taking advantage of a very +lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do not in truth believe +it. All the circumstances which attended the subscription strongly spoke +a different language. Be it, however, as these detractors say. This with +me derogates little, or rather nothing at all, from the political value +and importance of the fact. I should be very sorry, if the transaction +was not such a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair one. A +corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, +cannot be too much condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony +still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The value of money must +be judged, like everything else, from its rate at market. To force that +market, or any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For a small +temporary benefit, the spring of all public credit might be relaxed +forever. The moneyed men have a right to look to advantage in the +investment of their property. To advance their money, they risk it; and +the risk is to be included in the price. If they were to incur a loss, +that loss would amount to a tax on that peculiar species of property. In +effect, it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all +things,--unequal taxation. It would throw upon one description of +persons in the community that burden which ought by fair and equitable +distribution to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity +should be exempt; none (preserving due proportion) on account of the +scantiness of their means. The moment a man is exempted from the +maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it,--he +loses the place of a citizen. + +So it is in all _taxation_. But in a _bargain_, when terms of loss are +looked for by the borrower from the lender, compulsion, or what +virtually is compulsion, introduces itself into the place of treaty. +When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion +must determine. But the compulsion ought to be known, and well defined, +and well distinguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the energy of +compulsion, while compulsion destroys the freedom of a bargain. The +advantage of both is lost by the confusion of things in their nature +utterly unsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into that in +which freedom and existence are the same: I mean credit. The moment that +shame or fear or force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, +credit perishes. + +There must be some impulse, besides public spirit, to put private +interest into motion along with it. Moneyed men ought to be allowed to +set a value on their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed +men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means +of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though +sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious excess, is the +grand cause of prosperity to all states. In this natural, this +reasonable, this powerful, this prolific principle, it is for the +satirist to expose the ridiculous,--it is for the moralist to censure +the vicious,--it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate the hard and +cruel,--it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, +and the oppression; but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds +it, with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on +its head. It is his part, in this case, as it is in all other cases, +where he is to make use of the general energies of Nature, to take them +as he finds them. + +After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too commonly, almost +indeed generally, it is imagined, that the public borrower and the +private lender are two adverse parties, with different and contending +interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly taken from the +other. Constituted as our system of finance and taxation is, the +interests of the contracting parties cannot well be separated, whatever +they may reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to-day +to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own payment. For example, +the last loan is raised on public taxes, which are designed to produce +annually two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two +millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; +but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, +and you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in this state of +things. + +I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, +old or new, (I speak of certain classes in life,) will find a full third +of it to go in taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income +of two millions will probably furnish 665,000_l._ (I avoid broken +numbers) towards the payment of its own interest, or to the sinking of +its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it +any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to +consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but +not wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from the interest be +spent, the above proportion returns again into the public stock; +insomuch that, taking the interest of the whole debt to be twelve +million three hundred thousand pound, (it is something more,) not less +than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again +to the public through the channel of imposition. If the whole or any +part of that income be saved, so much new capital is generated,--the +infallible operation of which is to lower the value of money, and +consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit. + +I take the expenditure of the _capitalist_, not the value of the +capital, as my standard; because it is the standard upon which, amongst +us, property, as an object of taxation, is rated. In this country, land +and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax. We preserve the +faculty from the expense. Our taxes, for the far greater portion, fly +over the heads of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with better +ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the harsh discipline of a +rigid necessity. With us, labor and frugality, the parents of riches, +are spared, and wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the common +stock, the moment they no longer enrich it by their industry or their +self-denial, their luxury and even their ease are obliged to pay +contribution to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but +because they are unproductive. If, in fact, the interest paid by the +public had not thus revolved again into its own fund, if this secretion +had not again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would have been +impossible for the nation to have existed to this time under such a +debt. But under the debt it does exist and flourish; and this +flourishing state of existence in no small degree is owing to the +contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken +from that capital by too close a bargain is but a delusive advantage: it +is so much lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the +one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it +is a consideration of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought +never wholly to lose sight. + +It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of +men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: +it is our business to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that +are derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues are rare, so +they must be unproductive. It is a good thing for a moneyed man to +pledge his property on the welfare of his country: he shows that he +places his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in this circle, we +know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be +also." For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to +see the attempts which have been made, with more good meaning than +foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this +loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is +established, there voluntary contribution can answer no purpose but to +disorder and disturb it in its course. To recur to such aids is, for so +much, to dissolve the community, and to return to a state of unconnected +Nature. And even if such a supply should be productive in a degree +commensurate to its object, it must also be productive of much vexation +and much oppression. Either the citizens by the proposed duties pay +their proportion according to some rate made by public authority, or +they do not. If the law be well made, and the contributions founded on +just proportions, everything superadded by something that is not as +regular as law, and as uniform in its operation, will become more or +less out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be not made upon +proper calculation, it is a disgrace to the public; wisdom, which fails +in skill to assess the citizen in just measure and according to his +means. But the hand of authority is not always the most heavy hand. It +is obvious that men may be oppressed by many ways besides those which +take their course from the supreme power of the state. Suppose the +payment to be wholly discretionary. Whatever has its origin in caprice +is sure not to improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is +impossible for each private individual to have any measure conformable +to the particular condition of each of his fellow-citizens, or to the +general exigencies of his country. 'Tis a random shot at best. + +When men proceed in this irregular mode, the first contributor is apt to +grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure +their means by his own envy, and not by the real state of their +fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which it may in them be an act +of the grossest imprudence to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with +which people will look upon a provision for the public which is bought +by discord at the expense of social quiet. Hence the bitter +heart-burnings, and the war of tongues, which is so often the prelude to +other wars. Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which is +according to the free will of the giver. A false shame, or a false +glory, against his feelings and his judgment, may tax an individual to +the detriment of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of +public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private +duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions +which he is to furnish according to the prescript of law. But what is +the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this +mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length leaves the +comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to prescribe to the +opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to +make of their fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the +subversion of all property. + +Far, very far, am I from supposing that such things enter into the +purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal has led them to this kind +of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their +intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will +perversely improve to the worst of their purposes. An ill-founded +plausibility in great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen the +wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, +pursuing this very course, and ending in this very event. These +projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution +to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts. These, for the +greater part, were not more ridiculous in the mode than contemptible in +the project. The other, which they called the patriotic contribution, +was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes of individuals, but +at their own will and on their own estimate; but this contribution +threatening to fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made it +compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and +ending, as all the frauds of power end, in plain violence. All these +devices to produce an involuntary will were under the pretext of +relieving the more indigent classes; but the principle of voluntary +contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower +classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the +regular, methodical payments to the state, as so many badges of slavery. +Thus all regular revenue failing, these impostors, raising the +superstructure on the same cheats with which they had laid the +foundation of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the +possessions of the rich, confiscated the whole, and, to prevent them +from reclaiming their rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the +process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a +greater degree of rapidity than could be expected. + +My opinion, then, is, that public contributions ought only to be raised +by the public will. By the judicious form of our Constitution, the +public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In its origin +it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, +unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and +wisdom of the whole popular mass, in the only way in which will and +wisdom can go together. This voluntary grant obtaining in its progress +the force of a law, a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and +consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and +satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to +arrogate anything to himself. If their will complies with their +obligation, the great end is answered in the happiest mode; if the will +resists the burden, every one loses a great part of his own will as a +common lot. After all, perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on +luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches so near as to be +confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be +with truth termed voluntary. + +I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as leading to a solution +of that question which I proposed in my first letter: "Whether the +inability of the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a +submission to the indignities and the calamities of a peace with the +Regicide power?" But give me leave to pursue this point a little +further. + +I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been +upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, +that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by +the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the +burden really lies, and where it presses, we must divide the people. As +to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their +earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a +greater proportion than the common sources of populousness abundantly +fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned pay according to the +produce of the soil, and, where the soil fails, according to the +operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous +labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to +accidental malady. I say nothing to the policy of the provision for the +poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This +is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of it as of a fact, +taken with others, to support me in my denial that hitherto any one of +the ordinary sources of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war. +I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has been less than the +supply. To say that in war no man must be killed is to say that there +ought to be no war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and who +would display their humanity at the expense of their honesty or their +understanding. If more lives are lost in this war than necessity +requires, they are lost by misconduct or mistake: but if the hostility +be just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be abandoned. + +That the stock of the common people, in numbers, is not lessened, any +more than the causes are impaired, is manifest, without being at the +pains of an actual numeration. An improved and improving agriculture, +which implies a great augmentation of labor, has not yet found itself at +a stand, no, not for a single moment, for want of the necessary hands, +either in the settled progress of husbandry or in the occasional +pressure of harvests. I have even reason to believe that there has been +a much smaller importation, or the demand of it, from a neighboring +kingdom, than in former times, when agriculture was more limited in its +extent and its means, and when the time was a season of profound peace. +On the contrary, the prolific fertility of country life has poured its +superfluity of population into the canals, and into other public works, +which of late years have been undertaken to so amazing an extent, and +which have not only not been discontinued, but, beyond all expectation, +pushed on with redoubled vigor, in a war that calls for so many of our +men and so much of our riches. An increasing capital calls for labor, +and an increasing population answers to the call. Our manufactures, +augmented both for the supply of foreign and domestic consumption, +reproducing, with the means of life, the multitudes which they use and +waste, (and which many of them devour much more surely and much more +largely than the war,) have always found the laborious hand ready for +the liberal pay. That the price of the soldier is highly raised is true. +In part this rise may be owing to some measures not so well considered +in the beginning of this war; but the grand cause has been the +reluctance of that class of people from whom the soldiery is taken to +enter into a military life,--not that, but, once entered into, it has +its conveniences, and even its pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier +who, at the intercession of his friends, and at their no small charge, +had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not +eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant +occupation and the augmented stipend found in towns and villages and +farms, which leaves a smaller number of persons to be disposed of. The +price of men for new and untried ways of life must bear a proportion to +the profits of that mode of existence from whence they are to be bought. + +So far as to the stock of the common people, as it consists in their +persons. As to the other part, which consists in their earnings, I have +to say, that the rates of wages are very greatly augmented almost +through the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been raised from +seven to nine shillings in the week, for the same laborer, performing +the same task, and no greater. Except something in the malt taxes and +the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax imposed for very many +years past which affects the laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on +the other hand, the tax upon houses not having more than seven windows +(that is, upon cottages) was repealed the very year before the +commencement of the present war. On the whole, I am satisfied that the +humblest class, and that class which touches the most nearly on the +lowest, out of which it is continually emerging, and to which it is +continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it +pays. That class receives two million sterling annually from the +classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public +contribution. + +I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of that language, so +ill suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so +unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered, +concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions +during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is only to be +ascribed to the intolerable license with which the newspapers break not +only the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum, +when they personate great men, and, like bad poets, make the heroes of +the piece talk more like us Grub-Street scribblers than in a style +consonant to persons of gravity and importance in the state. It was easy +to demonstrate the cause, and the sole cause, of that rise in the grand +article and first necessary of life. It would appear that it had no more +connection with the war than the moderate price to which all sorts of +grain were reduced, soon after the return of Lord Malmesbury, had with +the state of politics and the fate of his Lordship's treaty. I have +quite as good reason (that is, no reason at all) to attribute this +abundance to the longer continuance of the war as the gentlemen who +personate leading members of Parliament have had for giving the enhanced +price to that war, at a more early period of its duration. Oh, the folly +of us poor creatures, who, in the midst of our distresses or our +escapes, are ready to claw or caress one another, upon matters that so +seldom depend on our wisdom or our weakness, on our good or evil conduct +towards each other! + +An untimely shower or an unseasonable drought, a frost too long +continued or too suddenly broken up with rain and tempest, the blight of +the spring or the smut of the harvest will do more to cause the distress +of the belly than all the contrivances of all statesmen can do to +relieve it. Let government protect and encourage industry, secure +property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all that +they have to do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these +affairs, the better; the rest is in the hands of our Master and theirs. +We are in a constitution of things wherein "_modo sol nimius, modo +corripit imber_."--But I will push this matter no further. As I have +said a good deal upon it at various times during my public service, and +have lately written something on it, which may yet see the light, I +shall content myself now with observing that the vigorous and laborious +class of life has lately got, from the _bon-ton_ of the humanity of this +day, the name of the "_laboring poor_." We have heard many plans for the +relief of the "_laboring poor_." This puling jargon is not as innocent +as it is foolish. In meddling with great affairs, weakness is never +innoxious. Hitherto the name of poor (in the sense in which it is used +to excite compassion) has not been used for those who can, but for those +who cannot labor,--for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for +languishing and decrepit age; but when we affect to pity, as poor, those +who must labor or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the +condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man, that he must eat his +bread by the sweat of his brow,--that is, by the sweat of his body or +the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as +might be expected, from the curses of the Father of all blessings; it is +tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly +from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much +more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who +would elude the tasks which are put upon them by the great Master +Workman of the world, who, in His dealings with His creatures, +sympathizes with their weakness, and, speaking of a creation wrought by +mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of _labor_ and one of +_rest_. I do not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his mind and +vigorous in his arms, I cannot call such a man _poor_; I cannot pity my +kind as a kind, merely because they are men. This affected pity only +tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek +resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than +their own industry and frugality and sobriety. Whatever may be the +intention (which, because I do not know, I cannot dispute) of those who +would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in +the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies. + +In turning our view from the lower to the higher classes, it will not be +necessary for me to show at any length that the stock of the latter, as +it consists in their numbers, has not yet suffered any material +diminution. I have not seen or heard it asserted; I have no reason to +believe it: there is no want of officers, that I have ever understood, +for the new ships which we commission, or the new regiments which we +raise. In the nature of things, it is not with their persons that the +higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war. +There is another, and not less important part, which rests with almost +exclusive weight upon them. They furnish the means + + "how War may, best upheld, + Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, + In all her equipage." + +Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal +service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute, +and in their full and fair proportion, according to the relative +proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute all the +mind that actuates the whole machine. The fortitude required of them is +very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier or +common sailor in the face of danger and death: it is not a passion, it +is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, +deliberate principle, always present, always equable,--having no +connection with anger,--tempering honor with prudence,--incited, +invigorated, and sustained by a generous love of fame,--informed, +moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public +ends,--flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the +heart and the head,--carrying in itself its own commission, and proving +its title to every other command by the first and most difficult +command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it is a fortitude which +unites with the courage of the field the more exalted and refined +courage of the council,--which knows as well to retreat as to +advance,--which can conquer as well by delay as by the rapidity of a +march or the impetuosity of an attack,--which can be, with Fabius, the +black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or, with Scipio, +the thunderbolt of war,--which, undismayed by false shame, can patiently +endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can undergo, in the +taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect, +and "mouth honor" of those from whom it should meet a cheerful +obedience,--which, undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume that +most awful moral responsibility of deciding when victory may be too +dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and when the safety and +glory of their country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands. +Different stations of command may call for different modifications of +this fortitude, but the character ought to be the same in all. And +never, in the most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it shine +with brighter lustre than in the present sanguinary and ferocious +hostilities, wherever the British arms have been carried. But in this +most arduous and momentous conflict, which from its nature should have +roused us to new and unexampled efforts, I know not how it has been that +we have never put forth half the strength which we have exerted in +ordinary wars. In the fatal battles which have drenched the Continent +with blood and shaken the system of Europe to pieces, we have never had +any considerable army, of a magnitude to be compared to the least of +those by which in former times we so gloriously asserted our place as +protectors, not oppressors, at the head of the great commonwealth of +Europe. We have never manfully met the danger in front; and when the +enemy, resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning +the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal energy of the +destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of +the neighboring colonies, drove forth, by one sweeping law of +unprecedented despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to +overwhelm the countries and states which had for centuries stood the +firm barriers against the ambition of France, we drew back the arm of +our military force, which had never been more than half raised to oppose +him. From that time we have been combating only with the other arm of +our naval power,--the right arm of England, I admit,--but which struck +almost unresisted, with blows that could never reach the heart of the +hostile mischief. From that time, without a single effort to regain +those outworks which ever till now we so strenuously maintained, as the +strong frontier of our own dignity and safety no less than the liberties +of Europe,--with but one feeble attempt to succor those brave, faithful, +and numerous allies, whom, for the first time since the days of our +Edwards and Henrys, we now have in the bosom of France itself,--we have +been intrenching and fortifying and garrisoning ourselves at home, we +have been redoubling security on security to protect ourselves from +invasion, which has now first become to us a serious object of alarm and +terror. Alas! the few of us who have protracted life in any measure near +to the extreme limits of our short period have been condemned to see +strange things,--new systems of policy, new principles, and not only new +men, but what might appear a new species of men. I believe that any +person who was of age to take a part in public affairs forty years ago +(if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his memory) would +hardly credit his senses, when he should hear from the highest authority +that an army of two hundred thousand men was kept up in this island, and +that in the neighboring island there were at least fourscore thousand +more. But when he had recovered from his surprise on being told of this +army, which has not its parallel, what must be his astonishment to be +told again that this mighty force was kept up for the mere purpose of an +inert and passive defence, and that in its far greater part it was +disabled by its constitution and very essence from defending us against +an enemy by any one preventive stroke or any one operation of active +hostility? What must his reflections be, on learning further, that a +fleet of five hundred men of war, the best appointed, and to the full as +ably commanded as this country ever had upon the sea, was for the +greater part employed in carrying on the same system of unenterprising +defence? What must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers +the former energy of England, when he is given to understand that these +two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, +should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town? What would such a man, +what would any man think, if the garrison of so strange a fortress +should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make a sally,--and +that, contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war, an infinitely +inferior army, with the shattered relics of an almost annihilated navy, +ill-found and ill-manned, may with safety besiege this superior +garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin the place, +merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? Indeed, +indeed, my dear friend, I look upon this matter of our defensive system +as much the most important of all considerations at this moment. It has +oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily +distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you know that I am. +Should it please Providence to restore to me even the late weak remains +of my strength, I propose to make this matter the subject of a +particular discussion. I only mean here to argue, that the mode of +conducting the war on our part, be it good or bad, has prevented even +the common havoc of war in our population, and especially among that +class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way +amidst the perils and slaughter of the field of battle. + +The other causes which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower +classes, but which I have shown not to have existed to any such degree +during this war,--penury, cold, hunger, nakedness,--do not easily reach +the higher orders of society. I do not dread for them the slightest +taste of these calamities from the distress and pressure of the war. +They have much more to dread in that way from the confiscations, the +rapines, the burnings, and the massacres that may follow in the train of +a peace which shall establish the devastating and depopulating +principles and example of the French Regicides in security and triumph +and dominion. In the ordinary course of human affairs, any check to +population among men in ease and opulence is less to be apprehended from +what they may suffer than from what they enjoy. Peace is more likely to +be injurious to them in that respect than war. The excesses of delicacy, +repose, and satiety are as unfavorable as the extremes of hardship, +toil, and want to the increase and multiplication of our kind. Indeed, +the abuse of the bounties of Nature, much more surely than any partial +privation of them, tends to intercept that precious boon of a second +and dearer life in our progeny, which was bestowed in the first great +command to man from the All-Gracious Giver of all,--whose name be +blessed, whether He gives or takes away! His hand, in every page of His +book, has written the lesson of moderation. Our physical well-being, our +moral worth, our social happiness, our political tranquillity, all +depend on that control of all our appetites and passions which the +ancients designed by the cardinal virtue of _temperance_. + +The only real question to our present purpose, with regard to the higher +classes, is, How stands the account of their stock, as it consists in +wealth of every description? Have the burdens of the war compelled them +to curtail any part of their former expenditure?--which, I have before +observed, affords the only standard of estimating property as an object +of taxation. Do they enjoy all the same conveniences, the same comforts, +the same elegancies, the same luxuries, in the same or in as many +different modes as they did before the war? + +In the last eleven years there have been no less than three solemn +inquiries into the finances of the kingdom, by three different +committees of your House. The first was in the year 1786. On that +occasion, I remember, the report of the committee was examined, and +sifted and bolted to the bran, by a gentleman whose keen and powerful +talents I have ever admired. He thought there was not sufficient +evidence to warrant the pleasing representation which the committee had +made of our national prosperity. He did not believe that our public +revenue could continue to be so productive as they had assumed. He even +went the length of recording his own inferences of doubt in a set of +resolutions which now stand upon your journals. And perhaps the +retrospect on which the report proceeded did not go far enough back to +allow any sure and satisfactory average for a ground of solid +calculation. But what was the event? When the next committee sat, in +1791, they found, that, on an average of the last four years, their +predecessors had fallen short, in their estimate of the permanent taxes, +by more than three hundred and forty thousand pounds a year. Surely, +then, if I can show, that, in the produce of those same taxes, and more +particularly of such as affect articles of luxurious use and +consumption, the four years of the war have equalled those four years of +peace, flourishing as they were beyond the most sanguine speculations, I +may expect to hear no more of the distress occasioned by the war. + +The additional burdens which have been laid on some of those same +articles might reasonably claim some allowance to be made. Every new +advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to +retrench the quantity of his consumption; and if, upon the whole, he +pays the same, his property, computed by the standard of what he +voluntarily pays, must remain the same. But I am willing to forego that +fair advantage in the inquiry. I am willing that the receipts of the +permanent taxes which existed before January, 1793, should be compared +during the war, and during the period of peace which I have mentioned. I +will go further. Complete accounts of the year 1791 were separately laid +before your House. I am ready to stand by a comparison of the produce of +four years up to the beginning of the year 1792 with that of the war. Of +the year immediately previous to hostilities I have not been able to +obtain any perfect documents; but I have seen enough to satisfy me, +that, although a comparison including that year might be less favorable, +yet it would not essentially injure my argument. + +You will always bear in mind, my dear Sir, that I am not considering +whether, if the common enemy of the quiet of Europe had not forced us to +take up arms in our own defence, the spring-tide of our prosperity might +not have flowed higher than the mark at which it now stands. That +consideration is connected with the question of the justice and the +necessity of the war. It is a question which I have long since +discussed. I am now endeavoring to ascertain whether there exists, in +fact, any such necessity as we hear every day asserted, to furnish a +miserable pretext for counselling us to surrender at discretion our +conquests, our honor, our dignity, our very independence, and, with it, +all that is dear to man. It will be more than sufficient for that +purpose, if I can make it appear that we have been stationary during the +war. What, then, will be said, if, in reality, it shall be proved that +there is every indication of increased and increasing wealth, not only +poured into the grand reservoir of the national capital, but diffused +through all the channels of all the higher classes, and giving life and +activity, as it passes, to the agriculture, the manufactures, the +commerce, and the navigation of the country? + +The Finance Committee which has been appointed in this session has +already made two reports. Every conclusion that I had before drawn, as +you know, from my own observation, I have the satisfaction of seeing +there confirmed by that great public authority. Large as was the sum by +which the committee of 1791 found the estimate of 1786 to have been +exceeded in the actual produce of four years of peace, their own +estimate has been exceeded during the war by a sum more than one third +larger. The same taxes have yielded more than half a million beyond +their calculation. They yielded this, notwithstanding the stoppage of +the distilleries, against which, you may remember, I privately +remonstrated. With an allowance for that defalcation, they have yielded +sixty thousand pounds annually above the actual average of the preceding +four years of peace. I believe this to have been without parallel in all +former wars. If regard be had to the great and unavoidable burdens of +the present war, I am confident of the fact. + +But let us descend to particulars. The taxes which go by the general +name of Assessed Taxes comprehend the whole, or nearly the whole, +domestic establishment of the rich. They include some things which +belong to the middling, and even to all but the very lowest classes. +They now consist of the duties on houses and windows, on male servants, +horses, and carriages. They did also extend to cottages, to female +servants, wagons, and carts used in husbandry, previous to the year +1792,--when, with more enlightened policy, at the moment that the +possibility of war could not be out of the contemplation of any +statesman, the wisdom of Parliament confined them to their present +objects. I shall give the gross assessment for five years, as I find it +in the Appendix to the Second Report of your committee. + +1791 ending 5th April 1792 £1,706,334 +1792 1793 1,585,991 +1793 1794 1,597,623 +1794 1795 1,608,196 +1795 1796 1,625,874 + +Here will be seen a gradual increase during the whole progress of the +war; and if I am correctly informed, the rise in the last year, after +every deduction that can be made, affords the most consoling and +encouraging prospect. It is enormously out of all proportion. + +There are some other taxes which seem to have a reference to the same +general head. The present minister many years ago subjected bricks and +tiles to a duty under the excise. It is of little consequence to our +present consideration, whether these materials have been employed in +building more commodious, more elegant, and more magnificent +habitations, or in enlarging, decorating, and remodelling those which +sufficed for our plainer ancestors. During the first two years of the +war, they paid so largely to the public revenue, that in 1794 a new duty +was laid upon them, which was equal to one half of the old, and which +has produced upwards of 165,000_l._ in the last three years. Yet, +notwithstanding the pressure of this additional weight,[40] there has +been an actual augmentation in the consumption. The only two other +articles which come under this description are the stamp-duty on gold +and silver plate, and the customs on glass plates. This latter is now, I +believe, the single instance of costly furniture to be found in the +catalogue of our imports. If it were wholly to vanish, I should not +think we were ruined. Both the duties have risen, during the war, very +considerably in proportion to the total of their produce. + +We have no tax among us on the most necessary articles of food. The +receipts of our Custom-House, under the head of Groceries, afford us, +however, some means of calculating our luxuries of the table. The +articles of tea, coffee, and cocoa-nuts I would propose to omit, and to +take them instead from the excise, as best showing what is consumed at +home. Upon this principle, adding them all together, (with the exception +of sugar, for a reason which I shall afterwards mention,) I find that +they have produced, in one mode of comparison, upwards of 272,000_l._, +and in the other mode upwards of 165,000_l._, more during the war than +in peace.[41] An additional duty was also laid in 1795 on tea, another +on coffee, and a third on raisins,--an article, together with currants, +of much more extensive use than would readily be imagined. The balance +in favor of our argument would have been much enhanced, if our coffee +and fruit ships from the Mediterranean had arrived, last year, at their +usual season. They do not appear in these accounts. This was one +consequence arising (would to God that none more afflicting to Italy, to +Europe, and the whole civilized world had arisen!) from our impolitic +and precipitate desertion of that important maritime station. As to +sugar,[42] I have excluded it from the groceries, because the account of +the customs is not a perfect criterion of the consumption, much having +been reëxported to the North of Europe, which used to be supplied by +France; and in the official papers which I have followed there are no +materials to furnish grounds for computing this reëxportation. The +increase on the face of our entries is immense during the four years of +war,--little short of thirteen hundred thousand pounds. + +The increase of the duties on beer has been regularly progressive, or +nearly so, to a very large amount.[43] It is a good deal above a +million, and is more than equal to one eighth of the whole produce. +Under this general head some other liquors are included,--cider, perry, +and mead, as well as vinegar and verjuice; but these are of very +trifling consideration. The excise duties on wine, having sunk a little +during the first two years of the war, were rapidly recovering their +level again. In 1795 a heavy additional duty was imposed upon them, and +a second in the following year; yet, being compared with four years of +peace to 1790, they actually exhibit a small gain to the revenue. And +low as the importation may seem in 1796, when contrasted with any year +since the French treaty in 1787, it is still more than 3000 tuns above +the average importation for three years previous to that period. I have +added sweets, from which our factitious wines are made; and I would have +added spirits, but that the total alteration of the duties in 1789, and +the recent interruption of our distilleries, rendered any comparison +impracticable. + +The ancient staple of our island, in which we are clothed, is very +imperfectly to be traced on the books of the Custom-House: but I know +that our woollen manufactures flourish. I recollect to have seen that +fact very fully established, last year, from the registers kept in the +West Riding of Yorkshire. This year, in the West of England, I received +a similar account, on the authority of a respectable clothier in that +quarter, whose testimony can less be questioned, because, in his +political opinions, he is adverse, as I understand, to the continuance +of the war. The principal articles of female dress for some time past +have been muslins and calicoes.[44] These elegant fabrics of our own +looms in the East, which serve for the remittance of our own revenues, +have lately been imitated at home, with improving success, by the +ingenious and enterprising manufacturers of Manchester, Paisley, and +Glasgow. At the same time the importation from Bengal has kept pace with +the extension of our own dexterity and industry; while the sale of our +printed goods,[45] of both kinds, has been with equal steadiness +advanced by the taste and execution of our designers and artists. Our +woollens and cottons, it is true, are not all for the home market. They +do not distinctly prove, what is my present point, our own wealth by our +own expense. I admit it: we export them in great and growing quantities: +and they who croak themselves hoarse about the decay of our trade may +put as much of this account as they choose to the creditor side of money +received from other countries in payment for British skill and labor. +They may settle the items to their own liking, where all goes to +demonstrate our riches. I shall be contented here with whatever they +will have the goodness to leave me, and pass to another entry, which is +less ambiguous,--I mean that of silk.[46] The manufactory itself is a +forced plant. We have been obliged to guard it from foreign competition +by very strict prohibitory laws. What we import is the raw and prepared +material, which is worked up in various ways, and worn in various shapes +by both sexes. After what we have just seen, you will probably be +surprised to learn that the quantity of silk imported during the war has +been much greater than it was previously in peace; and yet we must all +remember, to our mortification, that several of our silk ships fell a +prey to Citizen Admiral Richery. You will hardly expect me to go through +the tape and thread, and all the other small wares of haberdashery and +millinery to be gleaned up among our imports. But I shall make one +observation, and with great satisfaction, respecting them. They +gradually diminish, as our own manufactures of the same description +spread into their places; while the account of ornamental articles which +our country does not produce, and we cannot wish it to produce, +continues, upon the whole, to rise, in spite of all the caprices of +fancy and fashion. Of this kind are the different furs[47] used for +muffs, trimmings, and linings, which, as the chief of the kind, I shall +particularize. You will find them below. + +The diversions of the higher classes form another and the only +remaining head of inquiry into their expenses: I mean those diversions +which distinguish the country and the town life,--which are visible and +tangible to the statesman,--which have some public measure and standard. +And here, when, I look to the report of your committee, I, for the first +time, perceive a failure. It is clearly so. Whichever way I reckon the +four years of peace, the old tax on the sports of the field has +certainly proved deficient since the war. The same money, however, or +nearly the same, has been paid to government,--though the same number of +individuals have not contributed to the payment. An additional tax was +laid in 1791, and during the war has produced upwards of 61,000_l._, +which is about 4000_l._ more than the decrease of the old tax, in one +scheme of comparison, and about 4000_l._ less, in the other scheme. I +might remark, that the amount of the new tax, in the several years of +the war, by no means bears the proportion which it ought to the old. +There seems to be some great irregularity or other in the receipt. But I +do not think it worth while to examine into the argument. I am willing +to suppose that many, who, in the idleness of peace, made war upon +partridges, hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble arms against +the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries may do what they +please with that concession. They are welcome to make the most of it. I +am sure of a very handsome set-off in the other branch of expense,--the +amusements of a town life. + +There is much gayety and dissipation and profusion which must escape and +disappoint all the arithmetic of political economy. But the theatres are +a prominent feature. They are established through every part of the +kingdom, at a cost unknown till our days. There is hardly a provincial +capital which does not possess, or which does not aspire to possess, a +theatre-royal. Most of them engage for a short time, at a vast price, +every actor or actress of name in the metropolis: a distinction which in +the reign of my old friend Garrick was confined to very few. The +dresses, the scenes, the decorations of every kind, I am told, are in a +new style of splendor and magnificence: whether to the advantage of our +dramatic taste, upon the whole, I very much doubt. It is a show and a +spectacle, not a play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the +genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured +by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age:-- + + Migravit ab aure voluptas + Omnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana: + Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas, + Dum fugiunt equitum turmæ, peditumque catervæ;-- + +I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and abominate +the sequel:-- + + Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis. + +I hope that no French fraternization, which the relations of peace and +amity with systematized regicide would assuredly sooner or later draw +after them, even if it should overturn our happy Constitution itself, +could so change the hearts of Englishmen as to make them delight in +representations and processions which have no other merit than that of +degrading and insulting the name of royalty. But good taste, manners, +morals, religion, all fly, wherever the principles of Jacobinism enter; +and we have no safety against them but in arms. + +The proprietors, whether in this they follow or lead what is called the +town, to furnish out these gaudy and pompous entertainments, must +collect so much more from the public. It was but just before the +breaking out of hostilities, that they levied for themselves the very +tax which, at the close of the American war, they represented to Lord +North as certain ruin to their affairs to demand for the state. The +example has since been imitated by the managers of our Italian Opera. +Once during the war, if not twice, (I would not willingly misstate +anything, but I am not very accurate on these subjects,) they have +raised the price of their subscription. Yet I have never heard that any +lasting dissatisfaction has been manifested, or that their houses have +been unusually and constantly thin. On the contrary, all the three +theatres have been repeatedly altered, and refitted, and enlarged, to +make them capacious of the crowds that nightly flock to them; and one of +those huge and lofty piles, which lifts its broad shoulders in gigantic +pride, almost emulous of the temples of God, has been reared from the +foundation at a charge of more than fourscore thousand pounds, and yet +remains a naked, rough, unsightly heap. + +I am afraid, my dear Sir, that I have tired you with these dull, though +important details. But we are upon a subject which, like some of a +higher nature, refuses ornament, and is contented with conveying +instruction. I know, too, the obstinacy of unbelief in those perverted +minds which have no delight but in contemplating the supposed distress +and predicting the immediate ruin of their country. These birds of evil +presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; +and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that +they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the +periods of our most abundant prosperity. Very early in my public life I +had occasion to make myself a little acquainted with their natural +history. My first political tract in the collection which a friend has +made of my publications is an answer to a very gloomy picture of the +state of the nation, which was thought to have been drawn by a statesman +of some eminence in his time. That was no more than the common spleen of +disappointed ambition: in the present day I fear that too many are +actuated by a more malignant and dangerous spirit. They hope, by +depressing our minds with a despair of our means and resources, to drive +us, trembling and unresisting, into the toils of our enemies, with whom, +from the beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in +strict concert and coöperation. If, with the report of your Finance +Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can +still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended +fears among well-disposed, though weak men, there is no way of +counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must we +forget that they are unwearied agitators, bold assertors, dexterous +sophisters. Proof must be accumulated upon proof, to silence them. With +this view, I shall now direct your attention to some other striking and +unerring indications of our flourishing condition; and they will, in +general, be derived from other sources, but equally authentic: from +other reports and proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, all which +unite with wonderful force of consent in the same general result. +Hitherto we have seen the superfluity of our capital discovering itself +only in procuring superfluous accommodation and enjoyment, in our +houses, in our furniture, in our establishments, in our eating and +drinking, our clothing, and our public diversions: we shall now see it +more beneficially employed in improving our territory itself: we shall +see part of our present opulence, with provident care, put out to usury +for posterity. + +To what ultimate extent it may be wise or practicable to push inclosures +of common and waste lands may be a question of doubt, in some points of +view: but no person thinks them already carried to excess; and the +relative magnitude of the sums laid out upon them gives us a standard of +estimating the comparative situation of the landed interest. Your House, +this session, appointed a committee on waste lands, and they have made a +report by their chairman, an honorable baronet, for whom the minister +the other day (with very good intentions, I believe, but with little +real profit to the public) thought fit to erect a board of agriculture. +The account, as it stands there, appears sufficiently favorable. The +greatest number of inclosing bills passed in any one year of the last +peace does not equal the smallest annual number in the war, and those of +the last year exceed by more than one half the highest year of peace. +But what was my surprise, on looking into the late report of the Secret +Committee of the Lords, to find a list of these bills during the war, +differing in every year, and[48] larger on the whole by nearly one +third! I have checked this account by the statute-book, and find it to +be correct. What new brilliancy, then, does it throw over the prospect, +bright as it was before! The number during the last four years has more +than doubled that of the four years immediately preceding; it has +surpassed the five years of peace, beyond which the Lords' committees +have not gone; it has even surpassed (I have verified the fact) the +whole ten years of peace. I cannot stop here. I cannot advance a single +step in this inquiry without being obliged to cast my eyes back to the +period when I first knew the country. These bills, which had begun in +the reign of Queen Anne, had passed every year in greater or less +numbers from the year 1723; yet in all that space of time they had not +reached the amount of any two years during the present war; and though +soon after that time they rapidly increased, still at the accession of +his present Majesty they were far short of the number passed in the four +years of hostilities. + +In my first letter I mentioned the state of our inland navigation, +neglected as it had been from the reign of King William to the time of +my observation. It was not till the present reign that the Duke of +Bridgewater's canal first excited a spirit of speculation and adventure +in this way. This spirit showed itself, but necessarily made no great +progress, in the American war. When peace was restored, it began of +course to work with more sensible effect; yet in ten years from that +event the bills passed on that subject were not so many as from the year +1793 to the present session of Parliament. From what I can trace on the +statute-book, I am confident that all the capital expended in these +projects during the peace bore no degree of proportion (I doubt, on +very grave consideration, whether all that was ever so expended was +equal) to the money which has been raised for the same purposes since +the war.[49] I know that in the last four years of peace, when they rose +regularly and rapidly, the sums specified in the acts were not near one +third of the subsequent amount. In the last session of Parliament, the +Grand Junction Company, as it is called, having sunk half a million, (of +which I feel the good effects at my own door,) applied to your House for +permission to subscribe half as much more among themselves. This Grand +Junction is an inosculation of the Grand Trunk; and in the present +session, the latter company has obtained the authority of Parliament to +float two hundred acres of land, for the purpose of forming a reservoir, +thirty feet deep, two hundred yards wide at the head, and two miles in +length: a lake which may almost vie with that which once fed the now +obliterated canal of Languedoc. + +The present war is, above all others of which we have heard or read, a +war against landed property. That description of property is in its +nature the firm base of every stable government,--and has been so +considered by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the +time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all +others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so +regarded in the practical politics of antiquity, where they are brought +more directly homo to our understandings and bosoms in the history of +Borne, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes were +always thought more respectable than those of the city. And if in our +own history there is any one circumstance to which, under God, are to be +attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue, and sober +settlement of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that, while the +landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other +countries, has at all times been in close connection and union with the +other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously allowed +to lead and direct and moderate all the rest. I cannot, therefore, but +see with singular gratification, that, during a war which has been +eminently made for the destruction of the lauded proprietors, as well as +of priests and kings, as much has been done by public works for the +permanent benefit of their stake in this country as in all the rest of +the current century, which now touches to its close. Perhaps after this +it may not be necessary to refer to private observation; but I am +satisfied that in general the rents of lands have been considerably +increased: they are increased very considerably, indeed, if I may draw +any conclusion from my own little property of that kind. I am not +ignorant, however, where our public burdens are most galling. But all of +this class will consider who they are that are principally menaced,--how +little the men of their description in other countries, where this +revolutionary fury has but touched, have been found equal to their own +protection,--how tardy and unprovided and full of anguish is their +flight, chained down as they are by every tie to the soil,--how +helpless they are, above all other men, in exile, in poverty, in need, +in all the varieties of wretchedness; and then let them well weigh what +are the burdens to which they ought not to submit for their own +salvation. + +Many of the authorities which I have already adduced, or to which I have +referred, may convey a competent notion of some of our principal +manufactures. Their general state will be clear from that of our +external and internal commerce, through which they circulate, and of +which they are at once the cause and effect. But the communication of +the several parts of the kingdom with each other and with foreign +countries has always been regarded as one of the most certain tests to +evince the prosperous or adverse state of our trade in all its branches. +Recourse has usually been had to the revenue of the Post-Office with +this view. I shall include the product of the tax which was laid in the +last war, and which will make the evidence more conclusive, if it shall +afford the same inference: I allude to the Post-Horse duty, which shows +the personal intercourse within the kingdom, as the Post-Office shows +the intercourse by letters both within and without. The first of these +standards, then, exhibits an increase, according to my former schemes of +comparison, from an eleventh to a twentieth part of the whole duty.[50] +The Post-Office gives still less consolation to those who are miserable +in proportion as the country feels no misery. From the commencement of +the war to the month of April, 1796, the gross produce had increased by +nearly one sixth of the whole sum which the state now derives from that +fund. I find that the year ending 5th of April, 1793, gave 627,592_l._, +and the year ending at the same quarter in 1796, 750,637_l._, after a +fair deduction having been made for the alteration (which, you know, on +grounds of policy I never approved) in your privilege of franking. I +have seen no formal document subsequent to that period, but I have been +credibly informed there is very good ground to believe that the revenue +of the Post-Office[51] still continues to be regularly and largely upon +the rise. + +What is the true inference to be drawn from the annual number of +bankruptcies has been the occasion of much dispute. On one side it has +been confidently urged as a sure symptom of a decaying trade: on the +other side it has been insisted that it is a circumstance attendant upon +a thriving trade; for that the greater is the whole quantity of trade, +the greater of course must be the positive number of failures, while the +aggregate success is still in the same proportion. In truth, the +increase of the number may arise from either of those causes. But all +must agree in one conclusion,--that, if the number diminishes, and at +the same time every other sort of evidence tends to show an augmentation +of trade, there can be no better indication. We have already had very +ample means of gathering that the year 1796 was a very favorable year of +trade, and in that year the number of bankruptcies was at least one +fifth below the usual average. I take this from the declaration of the +Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords.[52] He professed to speak from +the records of Chancery; and he added another very striking fact,--that +on the property actually paid into his court (a very small part, indeed, +of the whole property of the kingdom) there had accrued in that year a +net surplus of eight hundred thousand pounds, which was so much new +capital. + +But the real situation of our trade, during the whole of this war, +deserves more minute investigation. I shall begin with that which, +though the least in consequence, makes perhaps the most impression on +our senses, because it meets our eyes in our daily walks: I mean our +retail trade. The exuberant display of wealth in our shops was the sight +which most amazed a learned foreigner of distinction who lately resided +among us: his expression, I remember, was, that "_they seemed to be +bursting with opulence into the streets_." The documents which throw +light on this subject are not many, but they all meet in the same point: +all concur in exhibiting an increase. The most material are the general +licenses[53] which the law requires to be taken out by all dealers in +excisable commodities. These seem to be subject to considerable +fluctuations. They have not been so low in any year of the war as in the +years 1788 and 1789, nor ever so high in peace as in the first year of +the war. I should next state the licenses to dealers in spirits and +wine; but the change in them which took place in 1789 would give an +unfair advantage to my argument. I shall therefore content myself with +remarking, that from the date of that change the spirit licenses kept +nearly the same level till the stoppage of the distilleries in 1795. If +they dropped a little, (and it was but little,) the wine licenses, +during the same time, more than countervailed that loss to the revenue; +and it is remarkable with regard to the latter, that in the year 1796, +which was the lowest in the excise duties on wine itself, as well as in +the quantity imported, more dealers in wine appear to have been licensed +than in any former year, excepting the first year of the war. This fact +may raise some doubt whether the consumption has been lessened so much +as, I believe, is commonly imagined. The only other retail-traders whom +I found so entered as to admit of being selected are tea-dealers and +sellers of gold and silver plate, both of whom seem to have multiplied +very much in proportion to their aggregate number.[54] I have kept apart +one set of licensed sellers, because I am aware that our antagonists may +be inclined to triumph a little, when I name auctioneers and auctions. +They may be disposed to consider it as a sort of trade which thrives by +the distress of others. But if they will look at it a little more +attentively, they will find their gloomy comfort vanish. The public +income from these licenses has risen with very great regularity through +a series of years which all must admit to have been years of prosperity. +It is remarkable, too, that in the year 1793, which was the great year +of bankruptcies, these duties on auctioneers and auctions[55] fell below +the mark of 1791; and in 1796, which year had one fifth less than the +accustomed average of bankruptcies, they mounted at once beyond all +former examples. In concluding this general head, will you permit me, my +dear Sir, to bring to your notice an humble, but industrious and +laborious set of chapmen, against whom the vengeance of your House has +sometimes been levelled, with what policy I need not stay to inquire, as +they have escaped without much injury? The hawkers and peddlers,[56] I +am assured, are still doing well, though, from some new arrangements +respecting them made in 1789, it would be difficult to trace their +proceedings in any satisfactory manner. + +When such is the vigor of our traffic in its minutest ramifications, we +may be persuaded that the root and the trunk are sound. When we see the +life-blood of the state circulate so freely through the capillary +vessels of the System, we scarcely need inquire if the heart performs +its functions aright. But let us approach it; let us lay it bare, and +watch the systole and diastole, as it now receives and now pours forth +the vital stream through all the members. The port of London has always +supplied the main evidence of the state of our commerce. I know, that, +amidst all the difficulties and embarrassments of the year 1793, from +causes unconnected with and prior to the war, the tonnage of ships in +the Thames actually rose. But I shall not go through a detail of +official papers on this point. There is evidence, which has appeared +this very session before your House, infinitely more forcible and +impressive to my apprehension than all the journals and ledgers of all +the Inspectors-General from the days of Davenant. It is such as cannot +carry with it any sort of fallacy. It comes, not from one set, but from +many opposite sets of witnesses, who all agree in nothing else: +witnesses of the gravest and most unexceptionable character, and who +confirm what they say, in the surest manner, by their conduct. Two +different bills have been brought in for improving the port of London. I +have it from very good intelligence, that, when the project was first +suggested from necessity, there were no less than eight different plans, +supported by eight different bodies of subscribers. The cost of the +least was estimated at two hundred thousand pounds, and of the most +extensive at twelve hundred thousand. The two between which the contest +now lies substantially agree (as all the others must have done) in the +motives and reasons of the preamble; but I shall confine myself to that +bill which is proposed on the part of the mayor, aldermen, and common +council, because I regard them as the best authority, and their language +in itself is fuller and more precise. I certainly see them complain of +the "great delays, accidents, damages, losses, and extraordinary +expenses, which are almost continually sustained, to the hindrance and +discouragement of commerce, and the great injury of the public revenue." +But what are the causes to which they attribute their complaints? The +first is, "THAT, FROM THE VERY GREAT AND PROGRESSIVE INCREASE OF THE +NUMBER AND SIZE OF SHIPS AND OTHER VESSELS TRADING TO THE PORT OF +LONDON, the river Thames, in and near the said port, is in general so +much crowded with shipping, lighters, and other craft, that the +navigation of a considerable part of the river is thereby rendered +tedious and dangerous; and there is great want of room in the said port +for the safe and convenient mooring of vessels, and constant access to +them." The second is of the same nature. It is the want of regulations +and arrangements, never before found necessary, for expedition and +facility. The third is of another kind, but to the same effect: That the +legal quays are too confined, and there is not sufficient accommodation +for the landing and shipping of cargoes. And the fourth and last is +still different: they describe the avenues to the legal quays (which, +little more than a century since, the great fire of London opened and +dilated beyond the measure of our then circumstances) to be now +"incommodious, and much too narrow for the great concourse of carts and +other carriages usually passing and repassing therein." Thus our trade +has grown too big for the ancient limits of Art and Nature. Our streets, +our lanes, our shores, the river itself, which has so long been our +pride, are impeded and obstructed and choked up by our riches. They are, +like our shops, "bursting with opulence." To these misfortunes, to these +distresses and grievances alone, we are told, it is to be imputed that +still more of our capital has not been pushed into the channel of our +commerce, to roll back in its reflux still more abundant capital, and +fructify the national treasury in its course. Indeed, my dear Sir, when +I have before my eyes this consentient testimony of the corporation of +the city of London, the West India merchants, and all the other +merchants who promoted the other plans, struggling and contending which +of them shall be permitted to lay out their money in consonance with +their testimony, I cannot turn aside to examine what one or two violent +petitions, tumultuously voted by real or pretended liverymen of London, +may have said of the utter destruction and annihilation of trade. + +This opens a subject on which every true lover of his country, and, at +this crisis, every friend to the liberties of Europe, and of social +order in every country, must dwell and expatiate with delight. I mean to +wind up all my proofs of our astonishing and almost incredible +prosperity with the valuable information given to the Secret Committee +of the Lords by the Inspector-General. And here I am happy that I can +administer an antidote to all despondence from the same dispensary from +which the first dose of poison was supposed to have come. The report of +that committee is generally believed to have derived much benefit from +the labors of the same noble lord who was said, as the author of the +pamphlet of 1795, to have led the way in teaching us to place all our +hope on that very experiment which he afterwards declared in his place +to have been from the beginning utterly without hope. We have now his +authority to say, that, as far as our resources were concerned, the +experiment was equally without necessity. + +"It appears," as the committee has very justly and satisfactorily +observed, "by the accounts of the value of the imports and exports for +the last twenty years, produced by Mr. Irving, Inspector-General of +Imports and Exports, that the demands for cash to be sent abroad" +(which, by the way, including the loan to the Emperor, was nearly one +third less sent to the Continent of Europe than in the Seven Years' War) +... "was greatly compensated by a very large balance of commerce in +favor of this kingdom,--greater than was ever known in any preceding +period. The value of the exports of the last year amounted, according to +the valuation on which the accounts of the Inspector-General are +founded, to 30,424,184_l._, which is more than double what it was in any +year of the American war, and one third more than it was on an average +during the last peace, previous to the year 1792; and though the value +of the imports to this country has during the same period greatly +increased, the excess of the value of the exports above that of the +imports, which constitutes the balance of trade, has augmented even in a +greater proportion." These observations might perhaps be branched out +into other points of view, but I shall leave them to your own active and +ingenious mind. There is another and still more important light in +which, the Inspector-General's information may be seen,--and that is, as +affording a comparison of some circumstances in this war with the +commercial history of all our other wars in the present century. + +In all former hostilities, our exports gradually declined in value, and +then (with one single exception) ascended again, till they reached and +passed the level of the preceding peace. But this was a work of time, +sometimes more, sometimes less slow. In Queen Anne's war, which began in +1702, it was an interval of ten years before this was effected. Nine +years only were necessary, in the war of 1739, for the same operation. +The Seven Years' War saw the period much shortened: hostilities began in +1755; and in 1758, the fourth year of the war, the exports mounted above +the peace-mark. There was, however, a distinguishing feature of that +war,--that our tonnage, to the very last moment, was in a state of great +depression, while our commerce was chiefly carried on by foreign +vessels. The American war was darkened with singular and peculiar +adversity. Our exports never came near to their peaceful elevation, and +our tonnage continued, with very little fluctuation, to subside lower +and lower.[57] On the other hand, the present war, with regard to our +commerce, has the white mark of as singular felicity. If, from internal +causes, as well as the consequence of hostilities, the tide ebbed in +1793, it rushed back again with a bore in the following year, and from +that time has continued to swell and run every successive year higher +and higher into all our ports. The value of our exports last year above +the year 1792 (the mere increase of our commerce during the war) is +equal to the average value of all the exports during the wars of William +and Anne. + +It has been already pointed out, that our imports have not kept pace +with our exports: of course, on the face of the account, the balance of +trade, both positively and comparatively considered, must have been much +more than ever in our favor. In that early little tract of mine, to +which I have already more than once referred, I made many observations +on the usual method of computing that balance, as well as the usual +objection to it, that the entries at the Custom-House were not always +true. As you probably remember them, I shall not repeat them here. On +the one hand, I am not surprised that the same trite objection is +perpetually renewed by the detractors of our national affluence; and on +the other hand, I am gratified in perceiving that the balance of trade +seems to be now computed in a manner much clearer than it used to be +from those errors which I formerly noticed. The Inspector-General +appears to have made his estimate with every possible guard and caution. +His opinion is entitled to the greatest respect. It was in substance, (I +shall again use the words of the Report, as much better than my own,) +"that the true balance of our trade amounted, on a medium of the four +years preceding January, 1796, to upwards of 6,500,00_l._ per annum, +exclusive of the profits arising from our East and West India trade, +which he estimates at upwards of 4,000,000_l._ per annum, exclusive of +the profits derived from our fisheries." So that, including the +fisheries, and making a moderate allowance for the exceedings, which Mr. +Irving himself supposes, beyond his calculation, without reckoning what +the public creditors themselves pay to themselves, and without taking +one shilling from the stock of the landed interest, our colonies, our +Oriental possessions, our skill and industry, our commerce and +navigation, at the commencement of this year, were pouring a new annual +capital into the kingdom, hardly half a million short of the whole +interest of that tremendous debt from which we are taught to shrink in +dismay, as from an overwhelming and intolerable oppression. + +If, then, the real state of this nation is such as I have described, +(and I am only apprehensive that you may think I have taken too much +pains to exclude all doubt on this question,)--if no class is lessened +in its numbers, or in its stock, or in its conveniences, or even its +luxuries,--if they build as many habitations, and as elegant and as +commodious as ever, and furnish them with every chargeable decoration +and every prodigality of ingenious invention that can be thought of by +those who even incumber their necessities with superfluous +accommodation,--if they are as numerously attended,--if their equipages +are as splendid,--if they regale at table with as much or more variety +of plenty than ever,--if they are clad in as expensive and changeful a +diversity, according to their tastes and modes,--if they are not +deterred from the pleasures of the field by the charges which government +has wisely turned from the culture to the sports of the field,--if the +theatres are as rich and as well filled, and greater and at a higher +price than ever,--and (what is more important than all) if it is plain, +from the treasures which are spread over the soil or confided to the +winds and the seas, that there are as many who are indulgent to their +propensities of parsimony as others to their voluptuous desires, and +that the pecuniary capital grows instead of diminishing,--on what ground +are we authorized to say that a nation gambolling in an ocean of +superfluity is undone by want? With what face can we pretend that they +who have not denied any one gratification to any one appetite have a +right to plead poverty in order to famish their virtues and to put their +duties on short allowance? that they are to take the law from an +imperious enemy, and can contribute no longer to the honor of their +king, to the support of the independence of their country, to the +salvation of that Europe which, if it falls, must crush them with its +gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under +their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of +Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of +their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and +creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition +and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have +never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their +annual accumulation than all the well-husbanded capital that enabled +their ancestors, by long and doubtful and obstinate conflicts, to +defend and liberate and vindicate the civilized world? But I do not +accuse the people of England. As to the great majority of the nation, +they have done whatever, in their several ranks and conditions and +descriptions, was required of them by their relative situations in +society: and from those the great mass of mankind cannot depart, without +the subversion of all public order. They look up to that government +which they obey that they may be protected. They ask to be led and +directed by those rulers whom Providence and the laws of their country +have set over them, and under their guidance to walk in the ways of +safety and honor. They have again delegated the greatest trust which +they have to bestow to those faithful representatives who made their +true voice heard against the disturbers and destroyers of Europe. They +suffered, with unapproving acquiescence, solicitations, which they had +in no shape desired, to an unjust and usurping power, whom they had +never provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not dread. When the +exigencies of the public service could only be met by their voluntary +zeal, they started forth with an ardor which outstripped the wishes of +those who had injured them by doubting whether it might not be necessary +to have recourse to compulsion. They have in all things reposed an +enduring, but not an unreflecting confidence. That confidence demands a +full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and +undivided. The people stands acquitted, if the war is not carried on in +a manner suited to its objects. If the public honor is tarnished, if the +public safety suffers any detriment, the ministers, not the people, are +to answer it, and they alone. Its armies, its navies, are given to them +without stint or restriction. Its treasures are poured out at their +feet. Its constancy is ready to second all their efforts. They are not +to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure. The responsibility +which they are to dread is lest they should show themselves unequal to +the expectation of a brave people. The more doubtful may be the +constitutional and economical questions upon which they have received so +marked a support, the more loudly they are called upon to support this +great war, for the success of which their country is willing to +supersede considerations of no slight importance. Where I speak of +responsibility, I do not mean to exclude that species of it which the +legal powers of the country have a right finally to exact from those who +abuse a public trust: but high as this is, there is a responsibility +which attaches on them from which the whole legitimate power of the +kingdom cannot absolve them; there is a responsibility to conscience and +to glory, a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity +which men of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame,--a +responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but kings and +parliaments, but even nations themselves, must one day answer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] The Archduke Charles of Austria. + +[38] Dec 27, 1790. + +[39] Observations on a Late State of the Nation. + +[40] This and the following tables on the same construction are compiled +from the Reports of the Finance Committee in 1791 and 1797, with the +addition of the separate paper laid before the House of Commons, and +ordered to be printed, on the 7th of February, 1792. + + BRICKS AND TILES. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 94,521 | 1793 122,975 +1788 96,278 | 1794 106,811 +1789 91,773 | 1795 83,804 +1790 104,409 | 1796 94,668 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £386,981 | £408,258 £21,277. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £115,382 4 Years to 1791 £407,842 £416. + + + PLATE. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 22,707 | 1793 25,920 +1788 23,295 | 1794 23,637 +1789 22,453 | 1795 25,607 +1790 18,433 | 1796 28,513 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £86,888 | £103,677 £16,789. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £31,528 4 Years to 1791 £95,704 £7,973. + + GLASS PLATES. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 ---- | 1793 5,655 +1788 5,496 | 1794 5,456 +1789 4,686 | 1795 5,839 +1790 6,008 | 1796 8,871 + ------- | ------- + £16,190 | £25,821 + Increase to 1791 +1791 £7,880 4 Years to 1791 £24,070 £1,751. + + + +[41] + + GROCERIES. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 167,389 | 1793 124,655 +1788 133,191 | 1794 195,840 +1789 142,871 | 1795 208,242 +1790 156,311 | 1796 159,826 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £599,762 | £688,563 £88,081. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £236,727 4 Years to 1791 £669,100 £19,463. + + TEA. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 424,144 | 1793 477,644 +1788 426,660 | 1794 467,132 +1789 539,575 | 1795 507,518 +1790 417,736 | 1796 526,307 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £1,808,115 | £1,978,601 £170,486. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £448,709 4 Years to 1791 £1,832,680 £145,921. + +The additional duty imposed in 1795 produced in that year 137,656_l._, +and in 1796, 200,107_l._ + + COFFEE AND COCOA-NUTS. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 17,006 | 1793 36,846 +1788 30,217 | 1794 49,177 +1789 34,784 | 1795 27,913 +1790 38,647 | 1796 19,711 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £120,654 | £133,647 £12,993. + Decrease to 1791 +1791 £41,194 4 Years to 1791 £144,842 £11,195. + +The additional duty of 1795 in that year gave 16,775_l._, and in 1796, +15,319_l._ + +[42] + + SUGAR. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 1,065,109 | 1793 1,473,139 +1788 1,184,458 | 1794 1,392,965 +1789 1,905,106 | 1795 1,338,246 +1790 1,069,108 | 1796 1,474,899 + --------- | --------- Increase to 1790 + £4,413,781 | £5,679,249 £1,265,468. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £1,044,781 4 Years to 1791 £4,392,725 £1,286,524. + +There was a new duty on sugar in 1791, which produced in 1794 +234,292_l._, in 1795, 206,932_l._, and in 1796, 245,024_l._ It is not +clear from the report of the committee, whether the additional duty is +included in the account given above. + +[43] + + BEER, &c. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 1,761,429 | 1793 2,043,902 +1788 1,705,199 | 1794 2,082,053 +1789 1,742,514 | 1795 1,931,101 +1790 1,858,043 | 1796 2,294,377 + --------- | --------- Increase to 1790 + £7,067,185 | £8,351,433 £1,284,248. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £1,880,478 4 Years to 1791 £7,186,234 £1,165,199. + + WINE. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 219,934 | 1793 222,887 +1788 215,578 | 1794 283,644 +1789 252,649 | 1795 317,072 +1790 308,624 | 1796 187,818 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £996,785 | £1,011,421 £14,636. + Decrease to 1791 +1791 £336,549 4 Years to 1791 £1,113,400 £101,979. + + QUANTITY IMPORTED. +Years of Peace. Tuns. | Years of War. Tuns. +1787 22,978 | 1793 22,788 +1786 26,442 | 1794 27,868 +1789 27,414 | 1795 32,033 +1790 29,182 | 1796 19,079 + +The additional duty of 1795 produced that year 736,871_l._, and in 1796, +432,689_l._ A second additional duty, which produced 98,165_l._ was laid +in 1796. + + SWEETS. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 11,167 | 1793 11,016 +1788 7,375 | 1794 10,612 +1789 7,202 | 1795 13,321 +1790 4,953 | 1796 15,050 + ------ | ------ Increase to 1790 + £30,697 | £49,999 £19,302. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £13,282 4 Years to 1791 £32,812 £17,187. + +In 1795 an additional duty was laid on this article, which produced that +year 5,679_l._, and in 1796, 9,443_l._; and in 1796 a second, to +commence on the 20th of June: its produce in that year was 2,325_l._ + +[44] + + MUSLINS AND CALICOES. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 129,297 | 1793 173,050 +1788 138,660 | 1794 104,902 +1789 126,267 | 1795 103,857 +1790 128,865 | 1796 272,544 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £522,589 | £654,353 £131,764. + +This table begins with 1788. The net produce of the preceding year is +not in the report whence the table is taken. + +[45] + + PRINTED GOODS. +Years of Peace. £ Years of War. £ +1787 142,000 | 1793 191,566 +1788 154,486 | 1794 190,554 +1789 153,202 | 1795 197,416 +1790 157,156 | 1796 230,530 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £616,844 | £810,066 £193,222. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £191,489 4 Years to 1791 £666,333 £143,733. + + +These duties for 1787 are blended with several others. The proportion of +printed goods to the other articles for four years was found to be one +fourth. That proportion is here taken. + +[46] + + SILK. +Years of Peace. £ Years of War. £ +1787 166,912 | 1793 209,915 +1788 123,998 | 1794 221,306 +1789 157,730 | 1795 210,725 +1790 212,522 | 1796 221,007 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £661,162 | £862,953 £201,791. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £279,128 4 Years to 1791 £773,378 £89,575. + + + + +[47] + + FURS. +Years of Peace. £ Years of War. £ +1787 3,464 | 1793 2,829 +1788 2,958 | 1794 3,353 +1789 1,151 | 1795 3,666 +1790 3,328 | 1796 6,138 + ------ | ------ Increase to 1790 + £10,901 | £15,986 £5,085. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £5,731 4 Years to 1791 £13,168 £2,815. + +The skins here selected from the Custom-House accounts are, _Black Bear, +Ordinary Fox, Marten, Mink, Musquash, Otter, Raccoon_, and _Wolf_. + +[48] Report of the Lords' Committee of Secrecy, ordered to be printed +28th April, 1797, Appendix 44. + + INCLOSURE BILLS. +Years of Peace | Years of War. +1789 33 | 1793 60 +1790 25 | 1794 74 +1791 40 | 1795 77 +1792 40 | 1796 72 + --- | --- + 138 | 283 + + + +[49] + + NAVIGATION AND CANAL BILLS. +Years of Peace. | Years of War. +1789 3 | 1793 28 +1790 8 | 1794 18 +1791 10 | 1795 11 +1792 9 | 1796 12 + -- | -- + 80 | 69 + +Money raised £2,377,200 £ 7,115,100 + + + +[50] + + POST-HORSE DUTY. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1785 169,410 | 1793 191,488 +1788 204,659 | 1794 202,884 +1789 170,554 | 1795 196,691 +1790 181,155 | 1796 204,061 + -------- | -------- Increase to 1790 + £725,778 | £795,124 £69,346. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £198,634 4 Years to 1791 £755,002 £40,122. + + +[51] The above account is taken from a paper which was ordered by the +House of Commons to be printed 8th December, 1796. From the gross +produce of the year ending 5th April, 1796, there has been deducted in +that statement the sum of 36,666_l._, in consequence of the regulation +on franking, which took place on the 5th May, 1795, and was computed at +40,000_l._ per ann. To show an equal number of years, both of peace and +war, the accounts of two preceding years are given in the following +table, from a report made since Mr. Burke's death by a committee of the +House of Commons appointed to consider the claims of Mr. Palmer, the +late Comptroller-General; and for still greater satisfaction, the number +of letters, inwards and outwards, have been added, except for the year +1790-1791. The letter-book for that year is not to be found. + + + + POST-OFFICE. + | Number of Letters. + Gross Revenue |-------------------------------- + £ | Inwards. | Outwards. +April, 1790-1791 575,079 | -------- | --------- + 1791-1792 585,432 | 6,391,149 | 5,081,344 + 1792-1793 627,592 | 6,584,867 | 5,041,137 + 1793-1794 691,268 | 7,094,777 | 6,537,234 + 1794-1795 705,319 | 7,071,029 | 7,473,626 + 1795-1796 750,637 | 7,641,077 | 8,597,167 + +From the last-mentioned report it appears that the accounts have not +been completely and authentically made up for the years ending 5th +April, 1796 and 1797; but on the Receiver-General's books there is an +increase of the latter year over the former, equal to something more +than 5 per cent. + +[52] In a debate, 30th December, 1796, on the return of Lord +Malmesbury.--See Woodfall's Parliamentary Debates, Vol. XIII. p. 591. + +[53] + + GENERAL LICENSES. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 44,030 | 1793 45,568 +1788 40,882 | 1794 42,129 +1789 39,917 | 1795 43,350 +1790 41,970 | 1796 41,190 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £166,799 | £170,237 £3,438. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £44,240 4 Years to 1791 £167,009 £3,228. + + +[54] + + DEALERS IN TEA. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 10,934 | 1793 13,939 +1788 11,949 | 1794 14,315 +1789 12,501 | 1795 13,956 +1790 13,126 | 1796 14,830 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £48,510 | £57,040 £8,530. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £13,921 4 Years to 1791 £51,497 £5,543. + + + SELLERS OF PLATE. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 6,593 | 1793 8,178 +1788 7,953 | 1794 8,296 +1789 7,348 | 1795 8,128 +1790 7,988 | 1796 8,835 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £29,832 | £33,437 £3,555. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £8,327 4 Years to 1791 £31,616 £1,821. + + + + +[55] + + AUCTIONS AND AUCTIONEERS. +Years of Peace. £ | Years of War. £ +1787 48,964 | 1793 70,004 +1788 53,993 | 1794 82,659 +1789 52,024 | 1795 86,890 +1790 53,156 | 1796 109,594 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + £208,137 | £349,147 £141,010. + Increase to 1791 +1791 £70,973 4 Years to 1791 £230,146 £119,001. + + + + +[56] Since Mr. Burke's death a Fourth Report of the Committee of Finance +has made its appearance. An account is there given from the Stamp-Office +of the gross produce of duties on Hawkers and Peddlers for four years of +peace and four of war. It is therefore added in the manner of the other +tables. + + HAWKERS AND PEDDLERS. +Years of Peace. £ |Years of War. £ +1789 6,132 | 1793 6,042 +1790 6,708 | 1794 6,104 +1791 6,482 | 1795 6,795 +1792 6,008 | 1796 7,882 + ------- | ------- + £25,330 | £26,823 + +Increase in 4 Years of War £1,493 + + +[57] This account is extracted from different parts of Mr. Chalmers's +estimate. It is but just to mention, that in Mr. Chalmers's estimate the +sums are uniformly lower than those of the same year in Mr Irving's +account. + + +END OF VOL. V. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of the Right Honourable +Edmund Burke, Vol. V. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) + +Author: Edmund Burke + +Release Date: April 24, 2005 [EBook #15701] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURKE VOL 5 *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Susan Skinner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made +available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr + + + + + + + +THE WORKS + +OF + +THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +EDMUND BURKE + +IN TWELVE VOLUMES + +VOLUME THE FIFTH + +JOHN C. NIMMO + +14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. + +MDCCCLXXXVII + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. V. + +OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY, PARTICULARLY IN THE +LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT, 1793 1 + +PREFACE TO THE ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT TO HIS CONSTITUENTS; + WITH AN APPENDIX 65 + +LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., OCCASIONED BY A SPEECH MADE IN +THE HOUSE OF LORDS BY THE **** OF *******, IN THE DEBATE CONCERNING +LORD FITZWILLIAM, 1795 107 + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY 131 + +LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD ON THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS +PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, BY THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE +EARL OF LAUDERDALE, 1796 171 + +THREE LETTERS TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON THE PROPOSALS FOR +PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE. + + LETTER I. ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE 233 + + LETTER II. ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH + REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS 342 + + LETTER III. ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS + OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR + THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR 384 + + + + +OBSERVATIONS + +ON THE + +CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY + +PARTICULARLY IN THE + +LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. + +ADDRESSED TO + +THE DUKE OF PORTLAND AND LORD FITZWILLIAM. + +1793. + + + + +LETTER + +TO + +HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND. + + +MY DEAR LORD,--The paper which I take the liberty of sending to your +Grace was, for the greater part, written during the last session. A few +days after the prorogation some few observations were added. I was, +however, resolved to let it lie by me for a considerable time, that, on +viewing the matter at a proper distance, and when the sharpness of +recent impressions had been worn off, I might be better able to form a +just estimate of the value of my first opinions. + +I have just now read it over very coolly and deliberately. My latest +judgment owns my first sentiments and reasonings, in their full force, +with regard both to persons and things. + +During a period of four years, the state of the world, except for some +few and short intervals, has filled me with a good deal of serious +inquietude. I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism +as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as included in +Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. For this I have been +censured, as receiving through weakness, or spreading through fraud and +artifice, a false alarm. Whatever others may think of the matter, that +alarm, in my mind, is by no means quieted. The state of affairs +_abroad_ is not so much mended as to make me, for one, full of +confidence. At _home_, I see no abatement whatsoever in the zeal of the +partisans of Jacobinism towards their cause, nor any cessation in their +efforts to do mischief. What is doing by Lord Lauderdale on the first +scene of Lord George Gordon's actions, and in his spirit, is not +calculated to remove my apprehensions. They pursue their first object +with as much eagerness as ever, but with more dexterity. Under the +plausible name of peace, by which they delude or are deluded, they would +deliver us unarmed and defenceless to the confederation of Jacobins, +whose centre is indeed in France, but whose rays proceed in every +direction throughout the world. I understand that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, +has been lately very busy in spreading a disaffection to this war (which +we carry on for our being) in the country in which his property gives +him so great an influence. It is truly alarming to see so large a part +of the aristocratic interest engaged in the cause of the new species of +democracy, which is openly attacking or secretly undermining the system +of property by which mankind has hitherto been governed. But we are not +to delude ourselves. No man can be connected with a party which +professes publicly to admire or may be justly suspected of secretly +abetting this French Revolution, who must not be drawn into its vortex, +and become the instrument of its designs. + +What I have written is in the manner of apology. I have given it that +form, as being the most respectful; but I do not stand in need of any +apology for my principles, my sentiments, or my conduct. I wish the +paper I lay before your Grace to be considered as my most deliberate, +solemn, and even testamentary protest against the proceedings and +doctrines which have hitherto produced so much mischief in the world, +and which will infallibly produce more, and possibly greater. It is my +protest against the delusion by which some have been taught to look upon +this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place +or patronage, and to regard this Jacobin war abroad as a common war +about trade or territorial boundaries, or about a political balance of +power among rival or jealous states. Above all, it is my protest against +that mistake or perversion of sentiment by which they who agree with us +in our principles may on collateral considerations be regarded as +enemies, and those who, in this perilous crisis of all human affairs, +differ from us fundamentally and practically, as our best friends. Thus +persons of great importance may be made to turn the whole of their +influence to the destruction of their principles. + +I now make it my humble request to your Grace, that you will not give +any sort of answer to the paper I send, or to this letter, except barely +to let me know that you have received them. I even wish that at present +you may not read the paper which I transmit: lock it up in the drawer of +your library-table; and when a day of compulsory reflection comes, then +be pleased to turn to it. Then remember that your Grace had a true +friend, who had, comparatively with men of your description, a very +small interest in opposing the modern system of morality and policy, but +who, under every discouragement, was faithful to public duty and to +private friendship. I shall then probably be dead. I am sure I do not +wish to live to see such things. But whilst I do live, I shall pursue +the same course, although my merits should be taken for unpardonable +faults, and as such avenged, not only on myself, but on my posterity. + +Adieu, my dear Lord; and do me the justice to believe me ever, with most +sincere respect, veneration, and affectionate attachment, + +Your Grace's most faithful friend, + +And most obedient humble servant, + +EDMUND BURKE. + +BEACONSFIELD, Sept. 29, 1793. + + + + +OBSERVATIONS. + + +Approaching towards the close of a long period of public service, it is +natural I should be desirous to stand well (I hope I do stand tolerably +well) with that public which, with whatever fortune, I have endeavored +faithfully and zealously to serve. + +I am also not a little anxious for some place in the estimation of the +two persons to whom I address this paper. I have always acted with them, +and with those whom they represent. To my knowledge, I have not +deviated, no, not in the minutest point, from their opinions and +principles. Of late, without any alteration in their sentiments or in +mine, a difference of a very unusual nature, and which, under the +circumstances, it is not easy to describe, has arisen between us. + +In my journey with them through life, I met Mr. Fox in my road; and I +travelled with him very cheerfully, as long as he appeared to me to +pursue the same direction with those in whose company I set out. In the +latter stage of our progress a new scheme of liberty and equality was +produced in the world, which either dazzled his imagination, or was +suited to some new walks of ambition which were then opened to his view. +The whole frame and fashion of his politics appear to have suffered +about that time a very material alteration. It is about three years +since, in consequence of that extraordinary change, that, after a +pretty long preceding period of distance, coolness, and want of +confidence, if not total alienation on his part, a complete public +separation has been made between that gentleman and me. Until lately the +breach between us appeared reparable. I trusted that time and +reflection, and a decisive experience of the mischiefs which have flowed +from the proceedings and the system of France, on which our difference +had arisen, as well as the known sentiments of the best and wisest of +our common friends upon that subject, would have brought him to a safer +way of thinking. Several of his friends saw no security for keeping +things in a proper train after this excursion of his, but in the reunion +of the party on its old grounds, under the Duke of Portland. Mr. Fox, if +he pleased, might have been comprehended in that system, with the rank +and consideration to which his great talents entitle him, and indeed +must secure to him in any party arrangement that _could_ be made. The +Duke of Portland knows how much I wished for, and how earnestly I +labored that reunion, and upon terms that might every way be honorable +and advantageous to Mr. Fox. His conduct in the last session has +extinguished these hopes forever. + +Mr. Fox has lately published in print a defence of his conduct. On +taking into consideration that defence, a society of gentlemen, called +the Whig Club, thought proper to come to the following +resolution:--"That their confidence in Mr. Fox is confirmed, +strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him." + +To that resolution my two noble friends, the Duke of Portland and Lord +Fitzwilliam, have given their concurrence. + +The calumnies supposed in that resolution can be nothing else than the +objections taken to Mr. Fox's conduct in this session of Parliament; for +to them, and to them alone, the resolution refers. I am one of those who +have publicly and strongly urged those objections. I hope I shall be +thought only to do what is necessary to my justification, thus publicly, +solemnly, and heavily censured by those whom I most value and esteem, +when I firmly contend that the objections which I, with many others of +the friends to the Duke of Portland, have made to Mr. Fox's conduct, are +not _calumnies_, but founded on truth,--that they are not _few_, but +many,--and that they are not _light and trivial_, but, in a very high +degree, serious and important. + +That I may avoid the imputation of throwing out, even privately, any +loose, random imputations against the public conduct of a gentleman for +whom I once entertained a very warm affection, and whose abilities I +regard with the greatest admiration, I will put down, distinctly and +articulately, some of the matters of objection which I feel to his late +doctrines and proceedings, trusting that I shall be able to demonstrate +to the friends whose good opinion I would still cultivate, that not +levity, nor caprice, nor less defensible motives, but that very grave +reasons, influence my judgment. I think that the spirit of his late +proceedings is wholly alien to our national policy, and to the peace, to +the prosperity, and to the legal liberties of this nation, _according to +our ancient domestic and appropriated mode of holding them_. + +Viewing things in that light, my confidence in him is not increased, but +totally destroyed, by those proceedings. I cannot conceive it a matter +of honor or duty (but the direct contrary) in any member of Parliament +to continue systematic opposition for the purpose of putting government +under difficulties, until Mr. Fox (with all his present ideas) shall +have the principal direction of affairs placed in his hands, and until +the present body of administration (with their ideas and measures) is of +course overturned and dissolved. + +To come to particulars. + +1. The laws and Constitution of the kingdom intrust the sole and +exclusive right of treating with foreign potentates to the king. This is +an undisputed part of the legal prerogative of the crown. However, +notwithstanding this, Mr. Fox, without the knowledge or participation of +any one person in the House of Commons, with whom he was bound by every +party principle, in matters of delicacy and importance, confidentially +to communicate, thought proper to send Mr. Adair, as his representative, +and with his cipher, to St. Petersburg, there to frustrate the objects +for which the minister from the crown was authorized to treat. He +succeeded in this his design, and did actually frustrate the king's +minister in some of the objects of his negotiation. + +This proceeding of Mr. Fox does not (as I conceive) amount to absolute +high treason,--Russia, though on bad terms, not having been then +declaredly at war with this kingdom. But such a proceeding is in law not +very remote from that offence, and is undoubtedly a most +unconstitutional act, and an high treasonable misdemeanor. + +The legitimate and sure mode of communication between this nation and +foreign powers is rendered uncertain, precarious, and treacherous, by +being divided into two channels,--one with the government, one with the +head of a party in opposition to that government; by which means the +foreign powers can never be assured of the real authority or validity of +any public transaction whatsoever. + +On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that +time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an individual +an influence directly against the government of his country, in a +foreign court, has made a highway into England for the intrigues of +foreign courts in our affairs. This is a sore evil,--an evil from which, +before this time, England was more free than any other nation. Nothing +can preserve us from that evil--which connects cabinet factions abroad +with popular factions here--but the keeping sacred the crown as the only +channel of communication with every other nation. + +This proceeding of Mr. Fox has given a strong countenance and an +encouraging example to the doctrines and practices of the Revolution and +Constitutional Societies, and of other mischievous societies of that +description, who, without any legal authority, and even without any +corporate capacity, are in the habit of proposing, and, to the best of +their power, of forming, leagues and alliances with France. + +This proceeding, which ought to be reprobated on all the general +principles of government, is in a more narrow view of things not less +reprehensible. It tends to the prejudice of the whole of the Duke of +Portland's late party, by discrediting the principles upon which they +supported Mr. Fox in the Russian business, as if they of that party also +had proceeded in their Parliamentary opposition on the same mischievous +principles which actuated Mr. Fox in sending Mr. Adair on his embassy. + +2. Very soon after his sending this embassy to Russia, that is, in the +spring of 1792, a covenanting club or association was formed in London, +calling itself by the ambitious and invidious title of "_The Friends of +the People_." It was composed of many of Mr. Fox's own most intimate +personal and party friends, joined to a very considerable part of the +members of those mischievous associations called the Revolution Society +and the Constitutional Society. Mr. Fox must have been well apprised of +the progress of that society in every one of its steps, if not of the +very origin of it. I certainly was informed of both, who had no +connection with the design, directly or indirectly. His influence over +the persons who composed the leading part in that association was, and +is, unbounded. I hear that he expressed some disapprobation of this club +in one case, (that of Mr. St. John,) where his consent was formally +asked; yet he never attempted seriously to put a stop to the +association, or to disavow it, or to control, check, or modify it in any +way whatsoever. If he had pleased, without difficulty, he might have +suppressed it in its beginning. However, he did not only not suppress it +in its beginning, but encouraged it in every part of its progress, at +that particular time when Jacobin clubs (under the very same or similar +titles) were making such dreadful havoc in a country not thirty miles +from the coast of England, and when every motive of moral prudence +called for the discouragement of societies formed for the increase of +popular pretensions to power and direction. + +3. When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as +well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious +alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots, +he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and +conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule. He condemned and +vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation +issued by government on that occasion,--though he well knew that it had +passed through the Duke of Portland's hands, that it had received his +fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview +between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt. During the discussion of its +merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the +chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a +public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and +personally. On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I +presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of +Portland's friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of +the same description, have become separated from that time to this from +Mr. Fox's particular cabal,--very few of which cabal are, or ever have, +so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay +any respect to him or his opinions. + +4. At the beginning of this session, when the sober part of the nation +was a second time generally and justly alarmed at the progress of the +French arms on the Continent, and at the spreading of their horrid +principles and cabals in England, Mr. Fox did not (as had been usual in +cases of far less moment) call together any meeting of the Duke of +Portland's friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking +their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that +critical juncture. He concerted his measures (if with any persons at +all) with the friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves +Friends of the People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to +the Duke of Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my +opinion) all pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much +more to be considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of +Commons. This could not give much encouragement to those who had been +separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first +proclamation, to rejoin that party. + +5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the House +of Commons,--and not having consulted them, because he had reason to +know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly +disagreeable to them,--he represented the alarm, which was a second time +given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in which he +painted the alarms of the former year. He described those alarms in this +manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal and +far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the supposition of the +growth of a Jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the nation. As to +the danger from _abroad_, on the first day of the session he said little +or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with defending the +ruling factions in France, and with accusing the public councils of this +kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of the +people,--declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole +danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown. The +policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to the +general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France. To +counteract the alarm given by the progress of Jacobin arms and +principles, he endeavored to excite an opposite alarm concerning the +growth of the power of the crown. If that alarm should prevail, he knew +that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of +the Jacobin empire: because it is obvious that war does, in its very +nature, necessitate the Commons considerably to strengthen the hands of +government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terror, +we could have no war. + +6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed +all the evils which the public had suffered to the proclamation of the +preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of Portland's +own son, the Marquis of Tichfield, who had seconded the address on that +proclamation, and in presence of the Duke of Portland's brother, Lord +Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends and nearest +relations. + +7. On that day, that is, on the 13th of December, 1792, he proposed an +amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House, and +which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did stand +upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out the part +of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon the ground +of the objections which he took to the legality of calling together +Parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and +sophistical,) but he likewise struck out _that part which related to the +cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England_, although +their practices and correspondences were of public notoriety. Mr. Cooper +and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the Jacobins. These +ambassadors were received by them as British representatives. Other +deputations of English had been received at the bar of the National +Assembly. They had gone the length of giving supplies to the Jacobin +armies; and they, in return, had received promises of military +assistance to forward their designs in England. A regular correspondence +for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies +in London with a great number of the Jacobin societies in France. This +correspondence had also for its object the pretended improvement of the +British Constitution. What is the most remarkable, and by much the more +mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck +out everything in the address which _related to the tokens of ambition +given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and +dangerous growth of her power upon every side_; and instead of all those +weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of +Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give +assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the +common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on +the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together, +and an engagement to inquire into that conduct. + +8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project +for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this +nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the Jacobin +societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would +have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two +proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened +and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications +would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been +authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea +or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same +time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest +of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot, +to France, just on the point of invading that republic. A general +consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with +every other power, except France, would have been forever rendered +impracticable to us. I think it impossible for any man, who regards the +dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of +mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox's proceedings in that tremendous crisis +of all human affairs. + +9. Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprised of the general dislike of +the Duke of Portland's friends to this conduct. Some of those who had +even voted with him, the day after their vote, expressed their +abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and +their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was +made; yet the very next day, that is, on Friday, the 14th of December, +he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same +principles, a _second_ time. + +10. Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a _third_ +time brought on another proposition in the same spirit, and pursued it +with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday: a thing not +known in Parliament for many years. + +11. In all these motions and debates he wholly departed from all the +political principles relative to France (considered merely as a state, +and independent of its Jacobin form of government) which had hitherto +been held fundamental in this country, and which he had himself held +more strongly than any man in Parliament. He at that time studiously +separated himself from those to whose sentiments he used to profess no +small regard, although those sentiments were publicly declared. I had +then no concern in the party, having been, for some time, with all +outrage, excluded from it; but, on general principles, I must say that a +person who assumes to be leader of a party composed of freemen and of +gentlemen ought to pay some degree of deference to their feelings, and +even to their prejudices. He ought to have some degree of management for +their credit and influence in their country. He showed so very little of +this delicacy, that he compared the alarm raised in the minds of the +Duke of Portland's party, (which was his own,) an alarm in which they +sympathized with the greater part of the nation, to the panic produced +by the pretended Popish plot in the reign of Charles the +Second,--describing it to be, as that was, a contrivance of knaves, and +believed only by well-meaning dupes and madmen. + +12. The Monday following (the 17th of December) he pursued the same +conduct. The means used in England to cooeperate with the Jacobin army in +politics agreed with their modes of proceeding: I allude to the +mischievous writings circulated with much industry and success, as well +as the seditious clubs, which at that time added not a little to the +alarm taken by observing and well-informed men. The writings and the +clubs were two evils which marched together. Mr. Fox discovered the +greatest possible disposition to favor and countenance the one as well +as the other of these two grand instruments of the French system. He +would hardly consider any political writing whatsoever as a libel, or as +a fit object of prosecution. At a time in which the press has been the +grand instrument of the subversion of order, of morals, of religion, +and, I may say, of human society itself, to carry the doctrines of its +liberty higher than ever it has been known by its most extravagant +assertors, even in France, gave occasion to very serious reflections. +Mr. Fox treated the associations for prosecuting these libels as tending +to prevent the improvement of the human mind, and as a mobbish tyranny. +He thought proper to compare them with the riotous assemblies of Lord +George Gordon in 1780, declaring that he had advised his friends in +Westminster to sign the associations, whether they agreed to them or +not, in order that they might avoid destruction to their persons or +their houses, or a desertion of their shops. This insidious advice +tended to confound those who wished well to the object of the +association with the seditious against whom the association was +directed. By this stratagem, the confederacy intended for preserving the +British Constitution and the public peace would be wholly defeated. The +magistrates, utterly incapable of distinguishing the friends from the +enemies of order, would in vain look for support, when they stood in the +greatest need of it. + +13. Mr. Fox's whole conduct, on this occasion, was without example. The +very morning after these violent declamations in the House of Commons +against the association, (that is, on Tuesday, the 18th,) he went +himself to a meeting of St. George's parish, and there signed an +association of the nature and tendency of those he had the night before +so vehemently condemned; and several of his particular and most intimate +friends, inhabitants of that parish, attended and signed along with him. + +14. Immediately after this extraordinary step, and in order perfectly to +defeat the ends of that association against Jacobin publications, +(which, contrary to his opinions, he had promoted and signed,) a +mischievous society was formed under his auspices, called _The Friends +of the Liberty of the Press_. Their title groundlessly insinuated that +the freedom of the press had lately suffered, or was now threatened +with, some violation. This society was only, in reality, another +modification of the society calling itself _The Friends of the People_, +which in the preceding summer had caused so much uneasiness in the Duke +of Portland's mind, and in the minds of several of his friends. This new +society was composed of many, if not most, of the members of the club of +the Friends of the People, with the addition of a vast multitude of +others (such as Mr. Horne Tooke) of the worst and most seditious +dispositions that could be found in the whole kingdom. In the first +meeting of this club Mr. Erskine took the lead, and directly (without +any disavowal ever since on Mr. Fox's part) _made use of his name and +authority in favor of its formation and purposes_. In the same meeting +Mr. Erskine had thanks for his defence of Paine, which amounted to a +complete avowal of that Jacobin incendiary; else it is impossible to +know how Mr. Erskine should have deserved such marked applauses for +acting merely as a lawyer for his fee, in the ordinary course of his +profession. + +15. Indeed, Mr. Fox appeared the general patron of all such persons and +proceedings. When Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and other persons, for +practices of the most dangerous kind, in Paris and in London, were +removed from the King's Guards, Mr. Fox took occasion in the House of +Commons heavily to censure that act, as unjust and oppressive, and +tending to make officers bad citizens. There were few, however, who did +not call for some such measures on the part of government, as of +absolute necessity for the king's personal safety, as well as that of +the public; and nothing but the mistaken lenity, with which such +practices were rather discountenanced than punished, could possibly +deserve reprehension in what was done with regard to those gentlemen. + +16. Mr. Fox regularly and systematically, and with a diligence long +unusual to him, did everything he could to countenance the same +principle of fraternity and connection with the Jacobins abroad, and the +National Convention of France, for which these officers had been removed +from the Guards. For when a bill (feeble and lax, indeed, and far short +of the vigor required by the conjuncture) was brought in for removing +out of the kingdom the emissaries of France, Mr. Fox opposed it with all +his might. He pursued a vehement and detailed opposition to it through +all its stages, describing it as a measure contrary to the existing +treaties between Great Britain and France, as a violation of the law of +nations, and as an outrage on the Great Charter itself. + +17. In the same manner, and with the same heat, he opposed a bill which +(though awkward and inartificial in its construction) was right and wise +in its principle, and was precedented in the best times, and absolutely +necessary at that juncture: I mean the Traitorous Correspondence Bill. +By these means the enemy, rendered infinitely dangerous by the links of +real faction and pretended commerce, would have been (had Mr. Fox +succeeded) enabled to carry on the war against us by our own resources. +For this purpose that enemy would have had his agents and traitors in +the midst of us. + +18. When at length war was actually declared by the usurpers in France +against this kingdom, and declared whilst they were pretending a +negotiation through Dumouriez with Lord Auckland, Mr. Fox still +continued, through the whole of the proceedings, to discredit the +national honor and justice, and to throw the entire blame of the war on +Parliament, and on his own country, as acting with violence, +haughtiness, and want of equity. He frequently asserted, both at the +time and ever since, that the war, though declared by France, was +provoked by us, and that it was wholly unnecessary and fundamentally +unjust. + +19. He has lost no opportunity of railing, in the most virulent manner +and in the most unmeasured language, at every foreign power with whom we +could now, or at any time, contract any useful or effectual alliance +against France,--declaring that he hoped no alliance with those powers +was made, or was in a train of being made.[1] He always expressed +himself with the utmost horror concerning such alliances. So did all +his phalanx. Mr. Sheridan in particular, after one of his invectives +against those powers, sitting by him, said, with manifest marks of his +approbation, that, if we must go to war, he had rather go to war alone +than with such allies. + +20. Immediately after the French declaration of war against us, +Parliament addressed the king in support of the war against them, as +just and necessary, and provoked, as well as formally declared against +Great Britain. He did not divide the House upon this measure; yet he +immediately followed this our solemn Parliamentary engagement to the +king with a motion proposing a set of resolutions, the effect of which +was, that the two Houses were to load themselves with every kind of +reproach for having made the address which they had just carried to the +throne. He commenced this long string of criminatory resolutions against +his country (if King, Lords, and Commons of Great Britain, and a decided +majority without doors are his country) _with a declaration against +intermeddling in the interior concerns of France_. The purport of this +resolution of non-interference is a thing unexampled in the history of +the world, when one nation has been actually at war with another. The +best writers on the law of nations give no sort of countenance to his +doctrine of non-interference, in the extent and manner in which he used +it, _even when there is no war_. When the war exists, not one authority +is against it in all its latitude. His doctrine is equally contrary to +the enemy's uniform practice, who, whether in peace or in war, makes it +his great aim not only to change the government, but to make an entire +revolution in the whole of the social order in every country. + +The object of the last of this extraordinary string of resolutions moved +by Mr. Fox was to advise the crown not to enter into such an engagement +with any foreign power so as to hinder us from making a _separate_ peace +with France, or which might tend to enable any of those powers to +introduce a government in that country other than such as those persons +whom he calls the people of France shall choose to establish. In short, +the whole of these resolutions appeared to have but one drift, namely, +the sacrifice of our own domestic dignity and safety, and the +independency of Europe, to the support of this strange mixture of +anarchy and tyranny which prevails in France, and which Mr. Fox and his +party were pleased to call a government. The immediate consequence of +these measures was (by an example the ill effects of which on the whole +world are not to be calculated) to secure the robbers of the innocent +nobility, gentry, and ecclesiastics of France in the enjoyment of the +spoil they have made of the estates, houses, and goods of their +fellow-citizens. + +21. Not satisfied with moving these resolutions, tending to confirm this +horrible tyranny and robbery, and with actually dividing the House on +the first of the long string which they composed, in a few days +afterwards he encouraged and supported Mr. Grey in producing the very +same string in a new form, and in moving, under the shape of an address +of Parliament to the crown, another virulent libel on all its own +proceedings in this session, in which not only all the ground of the +resolutions was again travelled over, but much new inflammatory matter +was introduced. In particular, a charge was made, that Great Britain had +not interposed to prevent the last partition of Poland. On this head +the party dwelt very largely and very vehemently. Mr. Fox's intention, +in the choice of this extraordinary topic, was evident enough. He well +knows two things: first, that no wise or honest man can approve of that +partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating great mischief +from it to all countries at some future time; secondly, he knows quite +as well, that, let our opinions on that partition be what they will, +England, by itself, is not in a situation to afford to Poland any +assistance whatsoever. The purpose of the introduction of Polish +politics into this discussion was not for the sake of Poland; it was to +throw an odium upon those who are obliged to decline the cause of +justice from their impossibility of supporting a cause which they +approve: as if we, who think more strongly on this subject than he does, +were of a party against Poland, because we are obliged to act with some +of the authors of that injustice against our common enemy, France. But +the great and leading purpose of this introduction of Poland into the +debates on the French war was to divert the public attention from what +was in our power, that is, from a steady cooeperation against France, to +a quarrel with the allies for the sake of a Polish war, which, for any +useful purpose to Poland, he knew it was out of our power to make. If +England can touch Poland ever so remotely, it must be through the medium +of alliances. But by attacking all the combined powers together for +their supposed unjust aggression upon France, he bound them by a now +common interest not separately to join England for the rescue of Poland. +The proposition could only mean to do what all the writers of his party +in the Morning Chronicle have aimed at persuading the public to, through +the whole of the last autumn and winter, and to this hour: that is, to +an alliance with the Jacobins of France, for the pretended purpose of +succoring Poland. This curious project would leave to Great Britain no +other ally in all Europe except its old enemy, France. + +22. Mr. Fox, after the first day's discussion on the question for the +address, was at length driven to admit (to admit rather than to urge, +and that very faintly) that France had discovered ambitious views, which +none of his partisans, that I recollect, (Mr. Sheridan excepted,) did, +however, either urge or admit. What is remarkable enough, all the points +admitted against the Jacobins were brought to bear in their favor as +much as those in which they were defended. For when Mr. Fox admitted +that the conduct of the Jacobins did discover ambition, he always ended +his admission of their ambitious views by an apology for them, insisting +that the universally hostile disposition shown to them rendered their +ambition a sort of defensive policy. Thus, on whatever roads he +travelled, they all terminated in recommending a recognition of their +pretended republic, and in the plan of sending an ambassador to it. This +was the burden of all his song:--"Everything which we could reasonably +hope from war would be obtained from treaty." It is to be observed, +however, that, in all these debates, Mr. Fox never once stated to the +House upon what ground it was he conceived that all the objects of the +French system of united fanaticism and ambition would instantly be given +up, whenever England should think fit to propose a treaty. On proposing +so strange a recognition and so humiliating an embassy as he moved, he +was bound to produce his authority, if any authority he had. He ought to +have done this the rather, because Le Brun, in his first propositions, +and in his answers to Lord Grenville, defended, _on principle, not on +temporary convenience_, everything which was objected to France, and +showed not the smallest disposition to give up any one of the points in +discussion. Mr. Fox must also have known that the Convention had passed +to the order of the day, on a proposition to give some sort of +explanation or modification to the hostile decree of the 19th of +November for exciting insurrections in all countries,--a decree known to +be peculiarly pointed at Great Britain. The whole proceeding of the +French administration was the most remote that could be imagined from +furnishing any indication of a pacific disposition: for at the very time +in which it was pretended that the Jacobins entertained those boasted +pacific intentions, at the very time in which Mr. Fox was urging a +treaty with them, not content with refusing a modification of the decree +for insurrections, they published their ever-memorable decree of the +15th of December, 1792, for disorganizing every country in Europe into +which they should on any occasion set their foot; and on the 25th and +the 30th of the same month, they solemnly, and, on the last of these +days, practically, confirmed that decree. + +23. But Mr. Fox had himself taken good care, in the negotiation he +proposed, that France should not be obliged to make any very great +concessions to her presumed moderation: for he had laid down one +general, comprehensive rule, with him (as he said) constant and +inviolable. This rule, in fact, would not only have left to the faction +in France all the property and power they had usurped at home, but most, +if not all, of the conquests which by their atrocious perfidy and +violence they had made abroad. The principle laid down by Mr. Fox is +this,--"_That every state, in the conclusion of a war, has a right to +avail itself of its conquests towards an indemnification_." This +principle (true or false) is totally contrary to the policy which this +country has pursued with France at various periods, particularly at the +Treaty of Ryswick, in the last century, and at the Treaty of +Aix-la-Chapelle, in this. Whatever the merits of his rule may be in the +eyes of neutral judges, it is a rule which no statesman before him ever +laid down in favor of the adverse power with whom he was to negotiate. +The adverse party himself may safely be trusted to take care of his +_own_ aggrandizement. But (as if the black boxes of the several parties +had been exchanged) Mr. Fox's English ambassador, by some odd mistake, +would find himself charged with the concerns of France. If we were to +leave France as she stood at the time when Mr. Fox proposed to treat +with her, that formidable power must have been infinitely strengthened, +and almost every other power in Europe as much weakened, by the +extraordinary basis which he laid for a treaty. For Avignon must go from +the Pope; Savoy (at least) from the King of Sardinia, if not Nice. +Liege, Mentz, Salm, Deux-Ponts, and Basle must be separated from +Germany. On this side of the Rhine, Liege (at least) must be lost to the +Empire, and added to France. Mr. Fox's general principle fully covered +all this. How much of these territories came within his rule he never +attempted to define. He kept a profound silence as to Germany. As to +the Netherlands he was something more explicit. He said (if I recollect +right) that France on that side might expect something towards +strengthening her frontier. As to the remaining parts of the +Netherlands, which he supposed France might consent to surrender, he +went so far as to declare that England ought not to permit the Emperor +to be repossessed of the remainder of the ten Provinces, but that _the +people_ should choose such a form of independent government as they +liked. This proposition of Mr. Fox was just the arrangement which the +usurpation in France had all along proposed to make. As the +circumstances were at that time, and have been ever since, his +proposition fully indicated what government the Flemings _must_ have in +the stated extent of what was left to them. A government so set up in +the Netherlands, whether compulsory, or by the choice of the +_sans-culottes_, (who he well knew were to be the real electors, and the +sole electors,) in whatever name it was to exist, must evidently depend +for its existence, as it had done for its original formation, on France. +In reality, it must have ended in that point to which, piece by piece, +the French were then actually bringing all the Netherlands,--that is, an +incorporation with France as a body of new Departments, just as Savoy +and Liege and the rest of their pretended independent popular +sovereignties have been united to their republic. Such an arrangement +must have destroyed Austria; it must have left Holland always at the +mercy of France; it must totally and forever cut off all political +communication between England and the Continent. Such must have been the +situation of Europe, according to Mr. Fox's system of politics, however +laudable his personal motives may have been in proposing so complete a +change in the whole system of Great Britain with regard to all the +Continental powers. + +24. After it had been generally supposed that all public business was +over for the session, and that Mr. Fox had exhausted all the modes of +pressing this French scheme, he thought proper to take a step beyond +every expectation, and which demonstrated his wonderful eagerness and +perseverance in his cause, as well as the nature and true character of +the cause itself. This step was taken by Mr. Fox immediately after his +giving his assent to the grant of supply voted to him by Mr. Serjeant +Adair and a committee of gentlemen who assumed to themselves to act in +the name of the public. In the instrument of his acceptance of this +grant, Mr. Fox took occasion to assure them that he would always +persevere _in the same conduct_ which had procured to him so honorable a +mark of the public approbation. He was as good as his word. + +25. It was not long before an opportunity was found, or made, for +proving the sincerity of his professions, and demonstrating his +gratitude to those who had given public and unequivocal marks of their +approbation of his late conduct. One of the most virulent of the Jacobin +faction, Mr. Gurney, a banker at Norwich, had all along distinguished +himself by his French politics. By the means of this gentleman, and of +his associates of the same description, one of the most insidious and +dangerous handbills that ever was seen had been circulated at Norwich +against the war, drawn up in an hypocritical tone of compassion for the +poor. This address to the populace of Norwich was to play in concert +with an address to Mr. Fox; it was signed by Mr. Gurney and the higher +part of the French fraternity in that town. In this paper Mr. Fox is +applauded for his conduct throughout the session, and requested, before +the prorogation, to make a motion for an immediate peace with France. + +26. Mr. Fox did not revoke to this suit: he readily and thankfully +undertook the task assigned to him. Not content, however, with merely +falling in with their wishes, he proposed a task on his part to the +gentlemen of Norwich, which was, _that they should move the people +without doors to petition against the war_. He said, that, without such +assistance, little good could be expected from anything he might attempt +within the walls of the House of Commons. In the mean time, to animate +his Norwich friends in their endeavors to besiege Parliament, he +snatched the first opportunity to give notice of a motion which he very +soon after made, namely, to address the crown to make peace with France. +The address was so worded as to cooeperate with the handbill in bringing +forward matter calculated to inflame the manufacturers throughout the +kingdom. + +27. In support of his motion, he declaimed in the most virulent strain, +even beyond any of his former invectives, against every power with whom +we were then, and are now, acting against France. In the _moral_ forum +some of these powers certainly deserve all the ill he said of them; but +the _political_ effect aimed at, evidently, was to turn our indignation +from France, with whom we were at war, upon Russia, or Prussia, or +Austria, or Sardinia, or all of them together. In consequence of his +knowledge that we _could_ not effectually do _without_ them, and his +resolution that we _should_ not act _with_ them, he proposed, that, +having, as he asserted, "obtained the only avowed object of the war (the +evacuation of Holland) we ought to conclude an instant peace." + +28. Mr. Fox could not be ignorant of the mistaken basis upon which his +motion was grounded. He was not ignorant, that, though the attempt of +Dumouriez on Holland, (so very near succeeding,) and the navigation of +the Scheldt, (a part of the same piece,) were among the _immediate_ +causes, they were by no means the only causes, alleged for Parliament's +taking that offence at the proceedings of France, for which the Jacobins +were so prompt in declaring war upon this kingdom. Other full as weighty +causes had been alleged: they were,--1. The general overbearing and +desperate ambition of that faction; 2. Their actual attacks on every +nation in Europe; 3. Their usurpation of territories in the Empire with +the governments of which they had no pretence of quarrel; 4. Their +perpetual and irrevocable consolidation with their own dominions of +every territory of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of Italy, of which +they got a temporary possession; 5. The mischiefs attending the +prevalence of their system, which would make the success of their +ambitious designs a new and peculiar species of calamity in the world; +6. Their formal, public decrees, particularly those of the 19th of +November and 15th and 25th of December; 7. Their notorious attempts to +undermine the Constitution of this country; 8. Their public reception of +deputations of traitors for that direct purpose; 9. Their murder of +their sovereign, declared by most of the members of the Convention, who +spoke with their vote, (without a disavowal from any,) to be perpetrated +as an example to _all_ kings and a precedent for _all_ subjects to +follow. All these, and not the Scheldt alone, or the invasion of +Holland, were urged by the minister, and by Mr. Windham, by myself, and +by others who spoke in those debates, as causes for bringing France to a +sense of her wrong in the war which she declared against us. Mr. Fox +well knew that not one man argued for the necessity of a vigorous +resistance to France, who did not state the war as being for the very +existence of the social order here, and in every part of Europe,--who +did not state his opinion that this war was not at all a foreign war of +empire, but as much for our liberties, properties, laws, and religion, +and even more so, than any we had ever been engaged in. This was the war +which, according to Mr. Fox and Mr. Gurney, we were to abandon before +the enemy had felt in the slightest degree the impression of our arms. + +29. Had Mr. Fox's disgraceful proposal been complied with, this kingdom +would have been stained with a blot of perfidy hitherto without an +example in our history, and with far less excuse than any act of perfidy +which we find in the history of any other nation. The moment when, by +the incredible exertions of Austria, (very little through ours,) the +temporary deliverance of Holland (in effect our own deliverance) had +been achieved, he advised the House instantly to abandon her to that +very enemy from whose arms she had freed ourselves and the closest of +our allies. + +30. But we are not to be imposed on by forms of language. We must act on +the substance of things. To abandon Austria in this manner was to +abandon Holland itself. For suppose France, encouraged and strengthened +as she must have been by our treacherous desertion,--suppose France, I +say, to succeed against Austria, (as she had succeeded the very year +before,) England would, after its disarmament, have nothing in the world +but the inviolable faith of Jacobinism and the steady politics of +anarchy to depend upon, against France's renewing the very same attempts +upon Holland, and renewing them (considering what Holland was and is) +with much better prospects of success. Mr. Fox must have been well +aware, that, if we were to break with the greater Continental powers, +and particularly to come to a rupture with them, in the violent and +intemperate mode in which he would have made the breach, the defence of +Holland against a foreign enemy and a strong domestic faction must +hereafter rest solely upon England, without the chance of a single ally, +either on that or on any other occasion. So far as to the pretended sole +object of the war, which Mr. Fox supposed to be so completely obtained +(but which then was not at all, and at this day is not completely +obtained) as to leave us nothing else to do than to cultivate a +peaceful, quiet correspondence with those quiet, peaceable, and moderate +people, the Jacobins of France. + +31. To induce us to this, Mr. Fox labored hard to make it appear that +the powers with whom we acted were full as ambitious and as perfidious +as the French. This might be true as to _other_ nations. They had not, +however, been so to _us_ or to Holland. He produced no proof of active +ambition and ill faith against Austria. But supposing the combined +powers had been all thus faithless, and been all alike so, there was one +circumstance which made an essential difference between them and +France. I need not, therefore, be at the trouble of contesting this +point,--which, however, in this latitude, and as at all affecting Great +Britain and Holland, I deny utterly. Be it so. But the great monarchies +have it in their power to keep their faith, _if they please_, because +they are governments of established and recognized authority at home and +abroad. France had, in reality, no government. The very factions who +exercised power had no stability. The French Convention had no powers of +peace or war. Supposing the Convention to be free, (most assuredly it +was not,) they had shown no disposition to abandon their projects. +Though long driven out of Liege, it was not many days before Mr. Fox's +motion that they still continued to claim it as a country which their +principles of fraternity bound them to protect,--that is, to subdue and +to regulate at their pleasure. That party which Mr. Fox inclined most to +favor and trust, and from which he must have received his assurances, +(if any he did receive,) that is, the _Brissotins_, were then either +prisoners or fugitives. The party which prevailed over them (that of +Danton and Marat) was itself in a tottering condition, and was disowned +by a very great part of France. To say nothing of the royal party, who +were powerful and growing, and who had full as good a right to claim to +be the legitimate government as any of the Parisian factions with whom +he proposed to treat,--or rather, (as it seemed to me,) to surrender at +discretion. + +32. But when Mr. Fox began to come from his general hopes of the +moderation of the Jacobins to particulars, he put the case that they +might not perhaps be willing to surrender Savoy. He certainly was not +willing to contest that point with them, but plainly and explicitly (as +I understood him) proposed to let them keep it,--though he knew (or he +was much worse informed than he would be thought) that England had at +the very time agreed on the terms of a treaty with the King of Sardinia, +of which the recovery of Savoy was the _casus foederis_. In the teeth of +this treaty, Mr. Fox proposed a direct and most scandalous breach of our +faith, formally and recently given. But to surrender Savoy was to +surrender a great deal more than so many square acres of land or so much +revenue. In its consequences, the surrender of Savoy was to make a +surrender to France of Switzerland and Italy, of both which countries +Savoy is the key,--as it is known to ordinary speculators in politics, +though it may not be known to the weavers in Norwich, who, it seems, are +by Mr. Fox called to be the judges in this matter. + +A sure way, indeed, to encourage France not to make a surrender of this +key of Italy and Switzerland, or of Mentz, the key of Germany, or of any +other object whatsoever which she holds, is to let her see _that the +people of England raise a clamor against the war before terms are so +much as proposed on any side_. From that moment the Jacobins would be +masters of the terms. They would know that Parliament, at all hazards, +would force the king to a separate peace. The crown could not, in that +case, have any use of its judgment. Parliament could not possess more +judgment than the crown, when besieged (as Mr. Fox proposed to Mr. +Gurney) by the cries of the manufacturers. This description of men Mr. +Fox endeavored in his speech by every method to irritate and inflame. In +effect, his two speeches were, through the whole, nothing more than an +amplification of the Norwich handbill. He rested the greatest part of +his argument on the distress of trade, which he attributed to the war; +though it was obvious to any tolerably good observation, and, much more, +must have been clear to such an observation as his, that the then +difficulties of the trade and manufacture could have no sort of +connection with our share in it. The war had hardly begun. We had +suffered neither by spoil, nor by defeat, nor by disgrace of any kind. +Public credit was so little impaired, that, instead of being supported +by any extraordinary aids from individuals, it advanced a credit to +individuals to the amount of five millions for the support of trade and +manufactures under their temporary difficulties, a thing before never +heard of,--a thing of which I do not commend the policy, but only state +it, to show that Mr. Fox's ideas of the effects of war were without any +trace of foundation. + +33. It is impossible not to connect the arguments and proceedings of a +party with that of its leader,--especially when not disavowed or +controlled by him. Mr. Fox's partisans declaim against all the powers of +Europe, except the Jacobins, just as he does; but not having the same +reasons for management and caution which he has, they speak out. He +satisfies himself merely with making his invectives, and leaves others +to draw the conclusion. But they produce their Polish interposition for +the express purpose of leading to a French alliance. They urge their +French peace in order to make a junction with the Jacobins to oppose the +powers, whom, in their language, they call despots, and their leagues, a +combination of despots. Indeed, no man can look on the present posture +of Europe with the least degree of discernment, who will not be +thoroughly convinced that England must be the fast friend or the +determined enemy of France. There is no medium; and I do not think Mr. +Fox to be so dull as not to observe this. His peace would have involved +us instantly in the most extensive and most ruinous wars, at the same +time that it would have made a broad highway (across which no human +wisdom could put an effectual barrier) for a mutual intercourse with the +fraternizing Jacobins on both sides, the consequences of which those +will certainly not provide against who do not dread or dislike them. + +34. It is not amiss in this place to enter a little more fully into the +spirit of the principal arguments on which Mr. Fox thought proper to +rest this his grand and concluding motion, particularly such as were +drawn from the internal state of our affairs. Under a specious +appearance, (not uncommonly put on by men of unscrupulous ambition,) +that of tenderness and compassion to the poor, he did his best to appeal +to the judgments of the meanest and most ignorant of the people on the +merits of the war. He had before done something of the same dangerous +kind in his printed letter. The ground of a political war is of all +things that which the poor laborer and manufacturer are the least +capable of conceiving. This sort of people know in general that they +must suffer by war. It is a matter to which they are sufficiently +competent, because it is a matter of feeling. The _causes_ of a war are +not matters of feeling, but of reason and foresight, and often of remote +considerations, and of a very great combination of circumstances which +_they_ are utterly incapable of comprehending: and, indeed, it is not +every man in the highest classes who is altogether equal to it. Nothing, +in a general sense, appears to me less fair and justifiable (even if no +attempt were made to inflame the passions) than to submit a matter on +discussion to a tribunal incapable of judging of more than _one side_ of +the question. It is at least as unjustifiable to inflame the passions of +such judges against _that side_ in favor of which they cannot so much as +comprehend the arguments. Before the prevalence of the French system, +(which, as far as it has gone, has extinguished the salutary prejudice +called our country,) nobody was more sensible of this important truth +than Mr. Fox; and nothing was more proper and pertinent, or was more +felt at the time, than his reprimand to Mr. Wilberforce for an +inconsiderate expression which tended to call in the judgment of the +poor to estimate the policy of war upon the standard of the taxes they +may be obliged to pay towards its support. + +35. It is fatally known that the great object of the Jacobin system is, +to excite the lowest description of the people to range themselves under +ambitious men for the pillage and destruction of the more eminent orders +and classes of the community. The thing, therefore, that a man not +fanatically attached to that dreadful project would most studiously +avoid is, to act a part with the French _Propagandists_, in attributing +(as they constantly do) all wars, and all the consequences of wars, to +the pride of those orders, and to their contempt of the weak and +indigent part of the society. The ruling Jacobins insist upon it, that +even the wars which they carry on with so much obstinacy against all +nations are made to prevent the poor from any longer being the +instruments and victims of kings, nobles, and the aristocracy of +burghers and rich men. They pretend that the destruction of kings, +nobles, and the aristocracy of burghers and rich men is the only means +of establishing an universal and perpetual peace. This is the great +drift of all their writings, from the time of the meeting of the states +of France, in 1789, to the publication of the last Morning Chronicle. +They insist that even the war which with so much boldness they have +declared against all nations is to prevent the poor from becoming the +instruments and victims of these persons and descriptions. It is but too +easy, if you once teach poor laborers and mechanics to defy their +prejudices, and, as this has been done with an industry scarcely +credible, to substitute the principles of fraternity in the room of that +salutary prejudice called our country,--it is, I say, but too easy to +persuade them, agreeably to what Mr. Fox hints in his public letter, +that this war is, and that the other wars have been, the wars of kings; +it is easy to persuade them that the terrors even of a foreign conquest +are not terrors for _them_; it is easy to persuade them, that, for their +part, _they_ have nothing to lose,--and that their condition is not +likely to be altered for the worse, whatever party may happen to prevail +in the war. Under any circumstances this doctrine is highly dangerous, +as it tends to make separate parties of the higher and lower orders, and +to put their interests on a different bottom. But if the enemy you have +to deal with should appear, as France now appears, under the very name +and title of the deliverer of the poor and the chastiser of the rich, +the former class would readily become not an indifferent spectator of +the war, but would be ready to enlist in the faction of the +enemy,--which they would consider, though under a foreign name, to be +more connected with them than an adverse description in the same land. +All the props of society would be drawn from us by these doctrines, and +the very foundations of the public defence would give way in an instant. + +36. There is no point which the faction of fraternity in England have +labored more than to excite in the poor the horror of any war with +France upon any occasion. When they found that their open attacks upon +our Constitution in favor of a French republic were for the present +repelled, they put that matter out of sight, and have taken up the more +plausible and popular ground of general peace, upon merely general +principles; although these very men, in the correspondence of their +clubs with those of France, had reprobated the neutrality which now they +so earnestly press. But, in reality, their maxim was, and is, "Peace and +alliance with France, and war with the rest of the world." + +37. This last motion of Mr. Fox bound up the whole of his politics +during the session. This motion had many circumstances, particularly in +the Norwich correspondence, by which the mischief of all the others was +aggravated beyond measure. Yet this last motion, far the worst of Mr. +Fox's proceedings, was the best supported of any of them, except his +amendment to the address. The Duke of Portland had directly engaged to +support the war;--here was a motion as directly made to force the crown +to put an end to it before a blow had been struck. The efforts of the +faction have so prevailed that some of his Grace's nearest friends have +actually voted for that motion; some, after showing themselves, went +away; others did not appear at all. So it must be, where a man is for +any time supported from personal considerations, without reference to +his public conduct. Through the whole of this business, the spirit of +fraternity appears to me to have been the governing principle. It might +be shameful for any man, above the vulgar, to show so blind a partiality +even to his own country as Mr. Fox appears, on all occasions, this +session, to have shown to France. Had Mr. Fox been a minister, and +proceeded on the principles laid down by him, I believe there is little +doubt he would have been considered as the most criminal statesman that +ever lived in this country. I do not know why a statesman out of place +is not to be judged in the same manner, unless we can excuse him by +pleading in his favor a total indifference to principle, and that he +would act and think in quite a different way, if he were in office. This +I will not suppose. One may think better of him, and that, in case of +his power, he might change his mind. But supposing, that, from better or +from worse motives, he might change his mind on his acquisition of the +favor of the crown, I seriously fear, that, if the king should to-morrow +put power into his hands, and that his good genius would inspire him +with maxims very different from those he has promulgated, he would not +be able to get the better of the ill temper and the ill doctrines he has +been the means of exciting and propagating throughout the kingdom. From +the very beginning of their inhuman and unprovoked rebellion and +tyrannic usurpation, he has covered the predominant faction in France, +and their adherents here, with the most exaggerated panegyrics; neither +has he missed a single opportunity of abusing and vilifying those who, +in uniform concurrence with the Duke of Portland's and Lord +Fitzwilliam's opinion, have maintained the true grounds of the +Revolution Settlement in 1688. He lamented all the defeats of the +French; he rejoiced in all their victories,--even when these victories +threatened to overwhelm the continent of Europe, and, by facilitating +their means of penetrating into Holland, to bring this most dreadful of +all evils with irresistible force to the very doors, if not into the +very heart, of our country. To this hour he always speaks of every +thought of overturning the French Jacobinism by force, on the part of +any power whatsoever, as an attempt unjust and cruel, and which he +reprobates with horror. If any of the French Jacobin leaders are spoken +of with hatred or scorn, he falls upon those who take that liberty with +all the zeal and warmth with which men of honor defend their particular +and bosom friends, when attacked. He always represents their cause as a +cause of liberty, and all who oppose it as partisans of despotism. He +obstinately continues to consider the great and growing vices, crimes, +and disorders of that country as only evils of passage, which are to +produce a permanently happy state of order and freedom. He represents +these disorders exactly in the same way and with the same limitations +which are used by one of the two great Jacobin factions: I mean that of +Petion and Brissot. Like them, he studiously confines his horror and +reprobation only to the massacres of the 2d of September, and passes by +those of the 10th of August, as well as the imprisonment and deposition +of the king, which were the consequences of that day, as indeed were the +massacres themselves to which he confines his censure, though they were +not actually perpetrated till early in September. Like that faction, he +condemns, not the deposition, or the proposed exile or perpetual +imprisonment, but only the murder of the king. Mr. Sheridan, on every +occasion, palliates all their massacres committed in every part of +France, as the effects of a natural indignation at the exorbitances of +despotism, and of the dread of the people of returning under that yoke. +He has thus taken occasion to load, not the actors in this wickedness, +but the government of a mild, merciful, beneficent, and patriotic +prince, and his suffering, faithful subjects, with all the crimes of the +new anarchical tyranny under which the one has been murdered and the +others are oppressed. Those continual either praises or palliating +apologies of everything done in France, and those invectives as +uniformly vomited out upon all those who venture to express their +disapprobation of such proceedings, coming from a man of Mr. Fox's fame +and authority, and one who is considered as the person to whom a great +party of the wealthiest men of the kingdom look up, have been the cause +why the principle of French fraternity formerly gained the ground which +at one time it had obtained in this country. It will infallibly recover +itself again, and in ten times a greater degree, if the kind of peace, +in the manner which he preaches, ever shall be established with the +reigning faction in France. + +38. So far as to the French practices with regard to France and the +other powers of Europe. As to their principles and doctrines with +regard to the constitution of states, Mr. Fox studiously, on all +occasions, and indeed when no occasion calls for it, (as on the debate +of the petition for reform,) brings forward and asserts their +fundamental and fatal principle, pregnant with every mischief and every +crime, namely, that "in every country the people is the legitimate +sovereign": exactly conformable to the declaration of the French clubs +and legislators:--"La souverainete est _une, indivisible, inalienable, +et imprescriptible_; elle appartient a la nation; aucune _section_ du +peuple ni aucun _individu_ ne peut s'en attribuer l'exercise." This +confounds, in a manner equally mischievous and stupid, the origin of a +government from the people with its continuance in their hands. I +believe that no such doctrine has ever been heard of in any public act +of any government whatsoever, until it was adopted (I think from the +writings of Rousseau) by the French Assemblies, who have made it the +basis of their Constitution at home, and of the matter of their +apostolate in every country. These and other wild declarations of +abstract principle, Mr. Fox says, are in themselves perfectly right and +true; though in some cases he allows the French draw absurd consequences +from them. But I conceive he is mistaken. The consequences are most +logically, though most mischievously, drawn from the premises and +principles by that wicked and ungracious faction. The fault is in the +foundation. + +39. Before society, in a multitude of men, it is obvious that +sovereignty and subjection are ideas which cannot exist. It is the +compact on which society is formed that makes both. But to suppose the +people, contrary to their compacts, both to give away and retain the +same thing is altogether absurd. It is worse, for it supposes in any +strong combination of men a power and right of always dissolving the +social union; which power, however, if it exists, renders them again as +little sovereigns as subjects, but a mere unconnected multitude. It is +not easy to state for what good end, at a time like this, when the +foundations of all ancient and prescriptive governments, such as ours, +(to which people submit, not because they have chosen them, but because +they are born to them,) are undermined by perilous theories, that Mr. +Fox should be so fond of referring to those theories, upon all +occasions, even though speculatively they might be true,--which God +forbid they should! Particularly I do not see the reason why he should +be so fond of declaring that the principles of the Revolution have made +the crown of Great Britain _elective_,--why he thinks it seasonable to +preach up with so much earnestness, for now three years together, the +doctrine of resistance and revolution at all,--or to assert that our +last Revolution, of 1688, stands on the same or similar principles with +that of France. We are not called upon to bring forward these doctrines, +which are hardly ever resorted to but in cases of extremity, and where +they are followed by correspondent actions. We are not called upon by +any circumstance, that I know of, which can justify a revolt, or which +demands a revolution, or can make an election of a successor to the +crown necessary, whatever latent right may be supposed to exist for +effectuating any of these purposes. + +40. Not the least alarming of the proceedings of Mr. Fox and his friends +in this session, especially taken in concurrence with their whole +proceedings with regard to France and its principles, is their eagerness +at this season, under pretence of Parliamentary reforms, (a project +which had been for some time rather dormant,) to discredit and disgrace +the House of Commons. For this purpose these gentlemen had found a way +to insult the House by several atrocious libels in the form of +petitions. In particular they brought up a libel, or rather a complete +digest of libellous matter, from the club called the Friends of the +People. It is, indeed, at once the most audacious and the most insidious +of all the performances of that kind which have yet appeared. It is said +to be the penmanship of Mr. Tierney, to bring whom into Parliament the +Duke of Portland formerly had taken a good deal of pains, and expended, +as I hear, a considerable sum of money. + +41. Among the circumstances of danger from that piece, and from its +precedent, it is observable that this is the first petition (if I +remember right) _coming from a club or association, signed by +individuals, denoting neither local residence nor corporate capacity_. +This mode of petition, not being strictly illegal or informal, though in +its spirit in the highest degree mischievous, may and will lead to other +things of that nature, tending to bring these clubs and associations to +the French model, and to make them in the end answer French purposes: I +mean, that, without legal names, these clubs will be led to assume +political capacities; that they may debate the forms of Constitution; +and that from their meetings they may insolently dictate their will to +the regular authorities of the kingdom, in the manner in which the +Jacobin clubs issue their mandates to the National Assembly or the +National Convention. The audacious remonstrance, I observe, is signed +by all of that association (the Friends of the People) _who are not in +Parliament_, and it was supported most strenuously by all the +associators _who are members_, with Mr. Fox at their head. He and they +contended for referring this libel to a committee. Upon the question of +that reference they grounded all their debate for a change in the +constitution of Parliament. The pretended petition is, in fact, a +regular charge or impeachment of the House of Commons, digested into a +number of articles. This plan of reform is not a criminal impeachment, +but a matter of prudence, to be submitted to the public wisdom, which +must be as well apprised of the facts as petitioners can be. But those +accusers of the House of Commons have proceeded upon the principles of a +criminal process, and have had the effrontery to offer proof on each +article. + +42. This charge the party of Mr. Fox maintained article by article, +beginning with the first,--namely, the interference of peers at +elections, and their nominating in effect several of the members of the +House of Commons. In the printed list of grievances which they made out +on the occasion, and in support of their charge, is found the borough +for which, under Lord Fitzwilliam's influence, I now sit. By this +remonstrance, and its object, they hope to defeat the operation of +property in elections, and in reality to dissolve the connection and +communication of interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual +support to each other. Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so +ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as +peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords +is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the +House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and +with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the +Lords could not exist a single year. They know that all these parts of +our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are +also connected as friends; otherwise nothing but confusion could be the +result of such a complex Constitution. It is natural, therefore, that +they who wish the common destruction of the whole and of all its parts +should contend for their total separation. But as the House of Commons +is that link which connects both the other parts of the Constitution +(the Crown and the Lords) _with the mass of the people_, it is to that +link (as it is natural enough) that their incessant attacks are +directed. That artificial representation of the people being once +discredited and overturned, all goes to pieces, and nothing but a plain +_French_ democracy or arbitrary monarchy can possibly exist. + +43. Some of these gentlemen who have attacked the House of Commons lean +to a representation of the people by the head,--that is, to _individual +representation_. None of them, that I recollect, except Mr. Fox, +directly rejected it. It is remarkable, however, that he only rejected +it by simply declaring an opinion. He let all the argument go against +his opinion. All the proceedings and arguments of his reforming friends +lead to individual representation, and to nothing else. It deserves to +be attentively observed, _that this individual representation is the +only plan of their reform which has been explicitly proposed_. In the +mean time, the conduct of Mr. Fox appears to be far more inexplicable, +on any good ground, than theirs, who propose the individual +representation; for he neither proposes anything, nor even suggests that +he has anything to propose, in lieu of the present mode of constituting +the House of Commons; on the contrary, he declares against all the plans +which have yet been suggested, either from himself or others: yet, thus +unprovided with any plan whatsoever, he pressed forward this unknown +reform with all possible warmth; and for that purpose, in a speech of +several hours, he urged the referring to a committee the libellous +impeachment of the House of Commons by the association of the Friends of +the People. But for Mr. Fox to discredit Parliament _as it stands_, to +countenance leagues, covenants, and associations for its further +discredit, to render it perfectly odious and contemptible, and at the +same time to propose nothing at all in place of what he disgraces, is +worse, if possible, than to contend for personal individual +representation, and is little less than demanding, in plain terms, to +bring on plain anarchy. + +44. Mr. Fox and these gentlemen have for the present been defeated; but +they are neither converted nor disheartened. They have solemnly declared +that they will persevere until they shall have obtained their +ends,--persisting to assert that the House of Commons not only is not +the true representative of the people, but that it does not answer the +purpose of such representation: most of them insist that all the debts, +the taxes, and the burdens of all kinds on the people, with every other +evil and inconvenience which we have suffered since the Revolution, have +been owing solely to an House of Commons which does not speak the sense +of the people. + +45. It is also not to be forgotten, that Mr. Fox, and all who hold with +him, on this, as on all other occasions of pretended reform, most +bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt with treachery, in declining to support the +scandalous charges and indefinite projects of this infamous libel from +the Friends of the People. By the animosity with which they persecute +all those who grow cold in this cause of pretended reform, they hope, +that, if, through levity, inexperience, or ambition, any young person +(like Mr. Pitt, for instance) happens to be once embarked in their +design, they shall by a false shame keep him fast in it forever. Many +they have so hampered. + +46. I know it is usual, when the peril and alarm of the hour appears to +be a little overblown, to think no more of the matter. But, for my part, +I look back with horror on what we have escaped, and am full of anxiety +with regard to the dangers which in my opinion are still to be +apprehended both at home and abroad. This business has cast deep roots. +Whether it is necessarily connected in theory with Jacobinism is not +worth a dispute. The two things are connected in fact. The partisans of +the one are the partisans of the other. I know it is common with those +who are favorable to the gentlemen of Mr. Fox's party and to their +leader, though not at all devoted to all their reforming projects or +their Gallican politics, to argue, in palliation of their conduct, that +it is not in their power to do all the harm which their actions +evidently tend to. It is said, that, as the people will not support +them, they may safely be indulged in those eccentric fancies of reform, +and those theories which lead to nothing. This apology is not very much +to the honor of those politicians whose interests are to be adhered to +in defiance of their conduct. I cannot flatter myself that these +incessant attacks on the constitution of Parliament are safe. It is not +in my power to despise the unceasing efforts of a confederacy of about +fifty persons of eminence: men, for the far greater part, of very ample +fortunes either in possession or in expectancy; men of decided +characters and vehement passions; men of very great talents of all +kinds, of much boldness, and of the greatest possible spirit of +artifice, intrigue, adventure, and enterprise, all operating with +unwearied activity and perseverance. These gentlemen are much stronger, +too, without doors than some calculate. They have the more active part +of the Dissenters with them, and the whole clan of speculators of all +denominations,--a large and growing species. They have that floating +multitude which goes with events, and which suffers the loss or gain of +a battle to decide its opinions of right and wrong. As long as by every +art this party keeps alive a spirit of disaffection against the very +Constitution of the kingdom, and attributes, as lately it has been in +the habit of doing, all the public misfortunes to that Constitution, it +is absolutely _impossible_ but that some moment must arrive in which +they will be enabled to produce a pretended reform and a real +revolution. If ever the body of this _compound Constitution_ of ours is +subverted, either in favor of unlimited monarchy or of wild democracy, +that ruin will _most certainly_ be the result of this very sort of +machinations against the House of Commons. It is not from a confidence +in the views or intentions of any statesman that I think he is to be +indulged in these perilous amusements. + +47. Before it is made the great object of any man's political life to +raise another to power, it is right to consider what are the real +dispositions of the person to be so elevated. We are not to form our +judgment on those dispositions from the rules and principles of a court +of justice, but from those of private discretion,--not looking for what +would serve to criminate another, but what is sufficient to direct +ourselves. By a comparison of a series of the discourses and actions of +certain men for a reasonable length of time, it is impossible not to +obtain sufficient indication of the general tendency of their views and +principles. There is no other rational mode of proceeding. It is true, +that in some one or two perhaps not well-weighed expressions, or some +one or two unconnected and doubtful affairs, we may and ought to judge +of the actions or words by our previous good or ill opinion of the man. +But this allowance has its bounds. It does not extend to any regular +course of systematic action, or of constant and repeated discourse. It +is against every principle of common sense, and of justice to one's self +and to the public, to judge of a series of speeches and actions from the +man, and not of the man from the whole tenor of his language and +conduct. I have stated the above matters, not as inferring a criminal +charge of evil intention. If I had meant to do so, perhaps they are +stated with tolerable exactness. But I have no such view. The intentions +of these gentlemen may be very pure. I do not dispute it. But I think +they are in some great error. If these things are done by Mr. Fox and +his friends with good intentions, they are not done less dangerously; +for it shows these good intentions are not under the direction of safe +maxims and principles. + +48. Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and the gentlemen who call themselves the +Phalanx, have not been so very indulgent to others. They have thought +proper to ascribe to those members of the House of Commons, who, in +exact agreement with the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, abhor +and oppose the French system, the basest and most unworthy motives for +their conduct;--as if none could oppose that atheistic, immoral, and +impolitic project set up in France, so disgraceful and destructive, as I +conceive, to human nature itself, but with some sinister intentions. +They treat those members on all occasions with a sort of lordly +insolence, though they are persons that (whatever homage they may pay to +the eloquence of the gentlemen who choose to look down upon them with +scorn) are not their inferiors in any particular which calls for and +obtains just consideration from the public: not their inferiors in +knowledge of public law, or of the Constitution of the kingdom; not +their inferiors in their acquaintance with its foreign and domestic +interests; not their inferiors in experience or practice of business; +not their inferiors in moral character; not their inferiors in the +proofs they have given of zeal and industry in the service of their +country. Without denying to these gentlemen the respect and +consideration which it is allowed justly belongs to them, we see no +reason why they should not as well be obliged to defer something to our +opinions as that we should be bound blindly and servilely to follow +those of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Lambton, +Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Taylor, and others. We are members of Parliament and +their equals. We never consider ourselves as their followers. These +gentlemen (some of them hardly born when some of us came into +Parliament) have thought proper to treat us as deserters,--as if we had +been listed into their phalanx like soldiers, and had sworn to live and +die in their French principles. This insolent claim of superiority on +their part, and of a sort of vassalage to them on that of other members, +is what no liberal mind will submit to bear. + +49. The society of the Liberty of the Press, the Whig Club, and the +Society for Constitutional Information, and (I believe) the Friends of +the People, as well as some clubs in Scotland, have, indeed, declared, +"that their confidence in and attachment to Mr. Fox has lately been +confirmed, strengthened, and increased by the calumnies" (as they are +called) "against him." It is true, Mr. Fox and his friends have those +testimonies in their favor, against certain old friends of the Duke of +Portland. Yet, on a full, serious, and, I think, dispassionate +consideration of the whole of what Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan and their +friends have acted, said, and written, in this session, instead of doing +anything which might tend to procure power, or any share of it +whatsoever, to them or to their phalanx, (as they call it,) or to +increase their credit, influence, or popularity in the nation, I think +it one of my most serious and important public duties, in whatsoever +station I may be placed for the short time I have to live, effectually +to employ my best endeavors, by every prudent and every lawful means, to +traverse all their designs. I have only to lament that my abilities are +not greater, and that my probability of life is not better, for the +more effectual pursuit of that object. But I trust that neither the +principles nor exertions will die with me. I am the rather confirmed in +this my resolution, and in this my wish of transmitting it, because +every ray of hope concerning a possible control or mitigation of the +enormous mischiefs which the principles of these gentlemen, and which +their connections, full as dangerous as their principles, might receive +from the influence of the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, on +becoming their colleagues in office, is now entirely banished from the +mind of every one living. It is apparent, even to the world at large, +that, so far from having a power to direct or to guide Mr. Fox, Mr. +Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and the rest, in any important matter, they have +not, through this session, been able to prevail on them to forbear, or +to delay, or mitigate, or soften, any one act, or any one expression, +upon subjects on which they essentially differed. + +50. Even if this hope of a possible control did exist, yet the declared +opinions, and the uniform line of conduct conformable to those opinions, +pursued by Mr. Fox, must become a matter of serious alarm, if he should +obtain a power either at court or in Parliament or in the nation at +large, and for this plain reason: he must be the most active and +efficient member in any administration of which he shall form a part. +That a man, or set of men, are guided by such not dubious, but delivered +and avowed principles and maxims of policy, as to need a watch and check +on them in the exercise of the highest power, ought, in my opinion, to +make every man, who is not of the same principles and guided by the +same maxims, a little cautious how he makes himself one of the +traverses of a ladder to help such a man, or such a set of men, to climb +up to the highest authority. A minister of this country is to be +controlled by the House of Commons. He is to be trusted, not +_controlled_, by his colleagues in office: if he were to be controlled, +government, which ought to be the source of order, would itself become a +scene of anarchy. Besides, Mr. Fox is a man of an aspiring and +commanding mind, made rather to control than to be controlled, and he +never will be nor can be in any administration in which he will be +guided by any of those whom I have been accustomed to confide in. It is +absurd to think that he would or could. If his own opinions do not +control him, nothing can. When we consider of an adherence to a man +which leads to his power, we must not only see what the man is, but how +he stands related. It is not to be forgotten that Mr. Fox acts in close +and inseparable connection with another gentleman of exactly the same +description as himself, and who, perhaps, of the two, is the leader. The +rest of the body are not a great deal more tractable; and over them, if +Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan have authority, most assuredly the Duke of +Portland has not the smallest degree of influence. + +51. One must take care that a blind partiality to some persons, and as +blind an hatred to others, may not enter into our minds under a color of +inflexible public principle. We hear, as a reason for clinging to Mr. +Fox at present, that nine years ago Mr. Pitt got into power by +mischievous intrigues with the court, with the Dissenters, and with +other factious people out of Parliament, to the discredit and weakening +of the power of the House of Commons. His conduct nine years ago I still +hold to be very culpable. There are, however, many things very culpable +that I do not know how to punish. My opinion on such matters I must +submit to the good of the state, as I have done on other occasions,--and +particularly with regard to the authors and managers of the American +war, with whom I have acted, both in office and in opposition, with +great confidence and cordiality, though I thought many of their acts +criminal and impeachable. Whilst the misconduct of Mr. Pitt and his +associates was yet recent, it was not possible to get Mr. Fox of himself +to take a single step, or even to countenance others in taking any step, +upon the ground of that misconduct and false policy; though, if the +matters had been then taken up and pursued, such a step could not have +appeared so evidently desperate as now it is. So far from pursuing Mr. +Pitt, I know that then, and for some time after, some of Mr. Fox's +friends were actually, and with no small earnestness, looking out to a +coalition with that gentleman. For years I never heard this circumstance +of Mr. Pitt's misconduct on that occasion mentioned by Mr. Fox, either +in public or in private, as a ground for opposition to that minister. +All opposition, from that period to this very session, has proceeded +upon the separate measures as they separately arose, without any +vindictive retrospect to Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784. My memory, however, +may fail me. I must appeal to the printed debates, which (so far as Mr. +Fox is concerned) are unusually accurate. + +52. Whatever might have been in our power at an early period, at this +day I see no remedy for what was done in 1784. I had no great hopes +even at the time. I was therefore very eager to record a remonstrance on +the journals of the House of Commons, as a caution against such a +popular delusion in times to come; and this I then feared, and now am +certain, is all that could be done. I know of no way of animadverting on +the crown. I know of no mode of calling to account the House of Lords, +who threw out the India Bill in a way not much to their credit. As +little, or rather less, am I able to coerce the people at large, who +behaved very unwisely and intemperately on that occasion. Mr. Pitt was +then accused, by me as well as others, of attempting to be minister +without enjoying the confidence of the House of Commons, though he did +enjoy the confidence of the crown. That House of Commons, whose +confidence he did not enjoy, unfortunately did not itself enjoy the +confidence (though we well deserved it) either of the crown or of the +public. For want of that confidence, the then House of Commons did not +survive the contest. Since that period Mr. Pitt has enjoyed the +confidence of the crown, and of the Lords, and _of the House of +Commons_, through two successive Parliaments; and I suspect that he has +ever since, and that he does still, enjoy as large a portion, at least, +of the confidence of the people without doors as his great rival. Before +whom, then, is Mr. Pitt to be impeached, and by whom? The more I +consider the matter, the more firmly I am convinced that the idea of +proscribing Mr. Pitt _indirectly_, when you cannot _directly punish_ +him, is as chimerical a project, and as unjustifiable, as it would be to +have proscribed Lord North. For supposing that by indirect ways of +opposition, by opposition upon measures which do not relate to the +business of 1784, but which on other grounds might prove unpopular, you +were to drive him from his seat, this would be no example whatever of +punishment for the matters we charge as offences in 1784. On a cool and +dispassionate view of the affairs of this time and country, it appears +obvious to me that one or the other of those two great men, that is, Mr. +Pitt or Mr. Fox, must be minister. They are, I am sorry for it, +irreconcilable. Mr. Fox's conduct _in this session_ has rendered the +idea of his power a matter of serious alarm to many people who were very +little pleased with the proceedings of Mr. Pitt in the beginning of his +administration. They like neither the conduct of Mr. Pitt in 1784, nor +that of Mr. Fox in 1793; but they estimate which of the evils is most +pressing at the time, and what is likely to be the consequence of a +change. If Mr. Fox be wedded, they must be sensible that his opinions +and principles on the now existing state of things at home and abroad +must be taken as his portion. In his train must also be taken the whole +body of gentlemen who are pledged to him and to each other, and to their +common politics and principles. I believe no king of Great Britain ever +will adopt, for his confidential servants, that body of gentlemen, +holding that body of principles. Even if the present king or his +successor should think fit to take that step, I apprehend a general +discontent of those who wish that this nation and that Europe should +continue in their present state would ensue,--a discontent which, +combined with the principles and progress of the new men in power, would +shake this kingdom to its foundations. I do not believe any one +political conjecture can be more certain than this. + +53. Without at all defending or palliating Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784, I +must observe, that the crisis of 1793, with regard to everything at home +and abroad, is full as important as that of 1784 ever was, and, if for +no other reason, by being present, is much more important. It is not to +nine years ago we are to look for the danger of Mr. Fox's and Mr. +Sheridan's conduct, and that of the gentlemen who act with them. It is +at _this_ very time, and in _this_ very session, that, if they had not +been strenuously resisted, they would not only have discredited the +House of Commons, (as Mr. Pitt did in 1784, when he persuaded the king +to reject their advice, and to appeal from them to the people,) but, in +my opinion, would have been the means of wholly subverting the House of +Commons and the House of Peers, and the whole Constitution actual and +virtual, together with the safety and independence of this nation, and +the peace and settlement of every state in the now Christian world. It +is to our opinion of the nature of Jacobinism, and of the probability, +by corruption, faction, and force, of its gaining ground everywhere, +that the question whom and what you are to support is to be determined. +For my part, without doubt or hesitation, I look upon Jacobinism as the +most dreadful and the most shameful evil which ever afflicted mankind, a +thing which goes beyond the power of all calculation in its +mischief,--and that, if it is suffered to exist in France, we must in +England, and speedily too, fall into that calamity. + +54. I figure to myself the purpose of these gentlemen accomplished, and +this ministry destroyed. I see that the persons who in that case must +rule can be no other than Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, the Marquis +of Lansdowne, Lord Thurlow, Lord Lauderdale, and the Duke of Norfolk, +with the other chiefs of the Friends of the People, the Parliamentary +reformers, and the admirers of the French Revolution. The principal of +these are all formally pledged to their projects. If the Duke of +Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam should be admitted into that system, (as +they might and probably would be,) it is quite certain they could not +have the smallest weight in it,--less, indeed, than what they now +possess, if less were possible: because they would be less wanted than +they now are; and because all those who wished to join them, and to act +under them, have been rejected by the Duke of Portland and Lord +Fitzwilliam themselves; and Mr. Fox, finding them thus by themselves +disarmed, has built quite a new fabric, upon quite a new foundation. +There is no trifling on this subject. We see very distinctly before us +the ministry that would be formed and the plan that would be pursued. If +we like the plan, we must wish the power of those who are to carry it +into execution; but to pursue the political exaltation of those whose +political measures we disapprove and whose principles we dissent from is +a species of modern politics not easily comprehensible, and which must +end in the ruin of the country, if it should continue and spread. Mr. +Pitt may be the worst of men, and Mr. Fox may be the best; but, at +present, the former is in the interest of his country, and of the order +of things long established in Europe: Mr. Fox is not. I have, for one, +been born in this order of things, and would fain die in it. I am sure +it is sufficient to make men as virtuous, as happy, and as knowing as +anything which Mr. Fox, and his friends abroad or at, home, would +substitute in its place; and I should be sorry that any set of +politicians should obtain power in England whose principles or schemes +should lead them to countenance persons or factions whose object is to +introduce some new devised order of things into England, or to support +that order where it is already introduced, in France,--a place in which +if it can be fixed, in my mind, it must have a certain and decided +influence in and upon this kingdom. + +This is my account of my conduct to my private friends. I have already +said all I wish to say, or nearly so, to the public. I write this with +pain and with an heart full of grief. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is an exception, that in one of his last speeches (but not +before) Mr. Fox seemed to think an alliance with Spain might be proper. + + + + +PREFACE + +TO THE + +ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT + +TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. + +TRANSLATED BY + +THE LATE WILLIAM BURKE, ESQ. + +1794. + + + + +PREFACE TO BRISSOT'S ADDRESS. + + +The French Revolution has been the subject of various speculations and +various histories. As might be expected, the royalists and the +republicans have differed a good deal in their accounts of the +principles of that Revolution, of the springs which have set it in +motion, and of the true character of those who have been, or still are, +the principal actors on that astonishing scene. + +They who are inclined to think favorably of that event will undoubtedly +object to every state of facts which comes only from the authority of a +royalist. Thus much must be allowed by those who are the most firmly +attached to the cause of religion, law, and order, (for of such, and not +of friends to despotism, the royal party is composed,)--that their very +affection to this generous and manly cause, and their abhorrence of a +Revolution not less fatal to liberty than to government, may possibly +lead them in some particulars to a more harsh representation of the +proceedings of their adversaries than would be allowed by the cold +neutrality of an impartial judge. This sort of error arises from a +source highly laudable; but the exactness of truth may suffer even from +the feelings of virtue. History will do justice to the intentions of +worthy men, but it will be on its guard against their infirmities; it +will examine with great strictness of scrutiny whatever appears from a +writer in favor of his own cause. On the other hand, whatever escapes +him, and makes against that cause, comes with the greatest weight. + +In this important controversy, the translator of the following work +brings forward to the English tribunal of opinion the testimony of a +witness beyond all exception. His competence is undoubted. He knows +everything which concerns this Revolution to the bottom. He is a chief +actor in all the scenes which he presents. No man can object to him as a +royalist: the royal party, and the Christian religion, never had a more +determined enemy. In a word, it is BRISSOT. It is Brissot, the +republican, the Jacobin, and the philosopher, who is brought to give an +account of Jacobinism, and of republicanism, and of philosophy. + +It is worthy of observation, that this his account of the genius of +Jacobinism and its effects is not confined to the period in which that +faction came to be divided within itself. In several, and those very +important particulars, Brissot's observations apply to the whole of the +preceding period before the great schism, and whilst the Jacobins acted +as one body; insomuch that the far greater part of the proceedings of +the ruling powers since the commencement of the Revolution in France, so +strikingly painted, so strongly and so justly reprobated by Brissot, +were the acts of Brissot himself and his associates. All the members of +the Girondin subdivision were as deeply concerned as any of the Mountain +could possibly be, and some of them much more deeply, in those horrid +transactions which have filled all the thinking part of Europe with the +greatest detestation, and with the most serious apprehensions for the +common liberty and safety. + +A question will very naturally be asked,--What could induce Brissot to +draw such a picture? He must have been sensible it was his own. The +answer is,--The inducement was the same with that which led him to +partake in the perpetration of all the crimes the calamitous effects of +which he describes with the pen of a master,--ambition. His faction, +having obtained their stupendous and unnatural power by rooting out of +the minds of his unhappy countrymen every principle of religion, +morality, loyalty, fidelity, and honor, discovered, that, when authority +came into their hands, it would be a matter of no small difficulty for +them to carry on government on the principles by which they had +destroyed it. + +The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality were +very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of +tranquillity and order. They who were taught to find nothing to respect +in the title and in the virtues of Louis the Sixteenth, a prince +succeeding to the throne by the fundamental laws, in the line of a +succession of monarchs continued for fourteen hundred years, found +nothing which could bind them to an implicit fidelity and dutiful +allegiance to Messrs. Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Anacharsis Clootz, +and Thomas Paine. + +In this difficulty, they did as well as they could. To govern the +people, they must incline the people to obey. The work was difficult, +but it was necessary. They were to accomplish it by such materials and +by such instruments as they had in their hands. They were to accomplish +the purposes of order, morality, and submission to the laws, from the +principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. Ill as the disguise +became them, they began to assume the mask of an austere and rigid +virtue; they exhausted all the stores of their eloquence (which in some +of them were not inconsiderable) in declamations against tumult and +confusion; they made daily harangues on the blessings of order, +discipline, quiet, and obedience to authority; they even showed some +sort of disposition to protect such property as had not been +confiscated. They who on every occasion had discovered a sort of furious +thirst of blood and a greedy appetite for slaughter, who avowed and +gloried in the murders and massacres of the 14th of July, of the 5th and +6th of October, and of the 10th of August, now began to be squeamish and +fastidious with regard to those of the 2nd of September. + +In their pretended scruples on the sequel of the slaughter of the 10th +of August, they imposed upon no living creature, and they obtained not +the smallest credit for humanity. They endeavored to establish a +distinction, by the belief of which they hoped to keep the spirit of +murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own purposes, without +endangering themselves by the fumes of the poison which they prepared +for their enemies. + +Roland was the chief and the most accredited of the faction. His morals +had furnished little matter of exception against him. Old, domestic, and +uxorious, he led a private life sufficiently blameless. He was therefore +set up as the _Cato_ of the republican party, which did not abound in +such characters. + +This man, like most of the chiefs, was the manager of a newspaper, in +which he promoted the interest of his party. He was a fatal present +made by the revolutionists to the unhappy king, as one of his ministers +under the new Constitution. Amongst his colleagues were Claviere and +Servan. All the three have since that time either lost their heads by +the axe of their associates in rebellion, or, to evade their own +revolutionary justice, have fallen by their own hands. + +These ministers were regarded by the king as in a conspiracy to dethrone +him. Nobody who considers the circumstances which preceded the +deposition of Louis the Sixteenth, nobody who attends to the subsequent +conduct of those ministers, can hesitate about the reality of such a +conspiracy. The king certainly had no doubt of it; he found himself +obliged to remove them; and the necessity, which first obliged him to +choose such regicide ministers constrained him to replace them by +Dumouriez the Jacobin, and some others of little efficiency, though of a +better description. + +A little before this removal, and evidently as a part of the conspiracy, +Roland put into the king's hands, as a memorial, the most insolent, +seditious, and atrocious libel that has probably ever been penned. This +paper Roland a few days after delivered to the National Assembly,[2] who +instantly published and dispersed it over all France; and in order to +give it the stronger operation, they declared that he and his brother +ministers had carried with them the regret of the nation. None of the +writings which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage fury ever +worked up a fiercer ferment through the whole mass of the republicans +in every part of France. + +Under the thin veil of _prediction_, he strongly _recommends_ all the +abominable practices which afterwards followed. In particular, he +inflamed the minds of the populace against the respectable and +conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the massacre, and +who were to him the chief objects of a malignity and rancor that one +could hardly think to exist in an human heart. + +We have the relics of his fanatical persecution here. We are in a +condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the +persecuted: I do not say the accusers and accused; because, in all the +furious declamations of the atheistic faction against these men, not one +specific charge has been made upon any one person of those who suffered +in their massacre or by their decree of exile. + +The king had declared that he would sooner perish under their axe (he +too well saw what was preparing for him) than give his sanction to the +iniquitous act of proscription under which those innocent people were to +be transported. + +On this proscription of the clergy a principal part of the ostensible +quarrel between the king and those ministers had turned. From the time +of the authorized publication of this libel, some of the manoeuvres long +and uniformly pursued for the king's deposition became more and more +evident and declared. + +The 10th of August came on, and in the manner in which Roland had +predicted: it was followed by the same consequences. The king was +deposed, after cruel massacres in the courts and the apartments of his +palace and in almost all parts of the city. In reward of his treason to +his old master, Roland was by his new masters named Minister of the Home +Department. + +The massacres of the 2nd of September were begotten by the massacres of +the 10th of August. They were universally foreseen and hourly expected. +During this short interval between the two murderous scenes, the furies, +male and female, cried out havoc as loudly and as fiercely as ever. The +ordinary jails were all filled with prepared victims; and when they +overflowed, churches were turned into jails. At this time the relentless +Roland had the care of the general police;--he had for his colleague the +bloody Danton, who was Minister of Justice; the insidious Petion was +Mayor of Paris; the treacherous Manuel was Procurator of the Common +Hall. The magistrates (some or all of them) were evidently the authors +of this massacre. Lest the national guard should, by their very name, be +reminded of their duty in preserving the lives of their fellow-citizens, +the Common Council of Paris, pretending that it was in vain to think of +resisting the murderers, (although in truth neither their numbers nor +their arms were at all formidable,) obliged those guards to draw the +charges from their muskets, and took away their bayonets. One of their +journalists, and, according to their fashion, one of their leading +statesmen, Gorsas, mentions this fact in his newspaper, which he +formerly called the Galley Journal. The title was well suited to the +paper and its author. For some felonies he had been sentenced to the +galleys; but, by the benignity of the late king, this felon (to be one +day advanced to the rank of a regicide) had been pardoned and released +at the intercession of the ambassadors of Tippoo Sultan. His gratitude +was such as might naturally have been expected; and it has lately been +rewarded as it deserved. This liberated galley-slave was raised, in +mockery of all criminal law, to be Minister of Justice: he became from +his elevation a more conspicuous object of accusation, and he has since +received the punishment of his former crimes in proscription and death. + +It will be asked, how the Minister of the Home Department was employed +at this crisis. The day after the massacre had commenced, Roland +appeared; but not with the powerful apparatus of a protecting +magistrate, to rescue those who had survived the slaughter of the first +day: nothing of this. On the 3rd of September, (that is, the day after +the commencement of the massacre,[3]) he writes a long, elaborate, +verbose epistle to the Assembly, in which, after magnifying, according +to the _bon-ton_ of the Revolution, his own integrity, humanity, +courage, and patriotism, he first directly justifies all the bloody +proceedings of the 10th of August. He considers the slaughter of that +day as a necessary measure for defeating a conspiracy which (with a full +knowledge of the falsehood of his assertion) he asserts to have been +formed for a massacre of the people of Paris, and which he more than +insinuates was the work of his late unhappy master,--who was universally +known to carry his dread of shedding the blood of his most guilty +subjects to an excess. + +"Without the day of the 10th," says he, "it is evident that we should +have been lost. The court, prepared for a long time, waited for the +hour which was to accumulate all treasons, to display over Paris the +standard of death, and to reign there by terror. The sense of the +people, (_le sentiment_,) always just and ready when their opinion is +not corrupted, foresaw the epoch marked for their destruction, and +rendered it fatal to the conspirators." He then proceeds, in the cant +which has been applied to palliate all their atrocities from the 14th of +July, 1789, to the present time:--"It is in the nature of things," +continues he, "and in that of the human heart, that victory should bring +with it _some_ excess. The sea, agitated by a violent storm, roars +_long_ after the tempest; but _everything has bounds_, which ought _at +length_ to be observed." + +In this memorable epistle, he considers such _excesses_ as fatalities +arising from the very nature of things, and consequently not to be +punished. He allows a space of time for the duration of these +agitations; and lest he should be thought rigid and too scanty in his +measure, he thinks it may be _long_. But he would have things to cease +_at length_. But when? and where?--When they may approach his own +person. + +"_Yesterday_," says he, "the ministers _were denounced: vaguely_, +indeed, as to the _matter_, because subjects of reproach were wanting; +but with that warmth and force of assertion which strike the imagination +and seduce it for a moment, and which mislead and destroy confidence, +without which no man should remain in place in a free government. +_Yesterday, again_, in an assembly of the presidents of all the +sections, convoked by the ministers, with the view of conciliating all +minds, and of mutual explanation, I perceived _that distrust which +suspects, interrogates, and fetters operations_." + +In this manner (that is, in mutual suspicions and interrogatories) this +virtuous Minister of the Home Department, and all the magistracy of +Paris, spent the first day of the massacre, the atrocity of which has +spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. It does not appear that the +putting a stop to the massacre had any part in the object of their +meeting, or in their consultations when they were met. Here was a +minister tremblingly alive to his own safety, dead to that of his +fellow-citizens, eager to preserve his place, and worse than indifferent +about its most important duties. Speaking of the people, he says "that +their hidden enemies may make use of this _agitation_" (the tender +appellation which he gives to horrid massacre) "to hurt _their best +friends and their most able defenders. Already the example begins_: let +it restrain and arrest a _just_ rage. Indignation carried to its height +commences proscriptions which fall only on the _guilty_, but in which +error and particular passions may shortly involve the _honest man_." + +He saw that the able artificers in the trade and mystery of murder did +not choose that their skill should be unemployed after their first work, +and that they were full as ready to cut off their rivals as their +enemies. This gave him _one_ alarm that was serious. This letter of +Roland, in every part of it, lets out the secret of all the parties in +this Revolution. _Plena rimarum est; hoc atque illac perfluit_. We see +that none of them condemn the occasional practice of murder,--provided +it is properly applied,--provided it is kept within the bounds which +each of those parties think proper to prescribe. In this case Roland +feared, that, if what was occasionally useful should become habitual, +the practice might go further than was convenient. It might involve the +best friends of the last Revolution, as it had done the heroes of the +first Revolution: he feared that it would not be confined to the La +Fayettes and Clermont-Tonnerres, the Duponts and Barnaves, but that it +might extend to the Brissots and Vergniauds, to the Condorcets, the +Petions, and to himself. Under this apprehension there is no doubt that +his humane feelings were altogether unaffected. + +His observations on the massacre of the preceding day are such as cannot +be passed over. "Yesterday," said he, "was a day upon the events of +which it is perhaps necessary to leave a _veil_. I know that the people +with their vengeance _mingled a sort of justice_: they did not take for +victims _all_ who presented themselves to their fury; they directed it +to _them who had for a long time been spared by the sword of the law_, +and who they _believed_, from the peril of circumstances, should be +sacrificed without delay. But I know that it is easy to _villains and +traitors_ to misrepresent this _effervescence_, and that it must be +checked; I know that we owe to all France the declaration, that the +_executive power_ could not foresee or prevent this excess; I know that +it is due to the constituted authorities to place a limit to it, or +consider themselves as abolished." + +In the midst of this carnage he thinks of nothing but throwing a veil +over it,--which was at once to cover the guilty from punishment, and to +extinguish all compassion for the sufferers. He apologizes for it; in +fact, he justifies it. He who (as the reader has just seen in what is +quoted from this letter) feels so much indignation at "vague +denunciations," when made against himself, and from which he then feared +nothing more than the subversion of his power, is not ashamed to +consider the charge of a conspiracy to massacre the Parisians, brought +against his master upon denunciations as vague as possible, or rather +upon no denunciations, as a perfect justification of the monstrous +proceedings against him. He is not ashamed to call the murder of the +unhappy priests in the Carmes, who were under no criminal denunciation +whatsoever, a "_vengeance_ mingled with a _sort of justice_"; he +observes that they "had been a long time spared by the sword of the +law," and calls by anticipation all those who should represent this +"_effervescence_" in other colors _villains and traitors_: he did not +than foresee how soon himself and his accomplices would be under the +necessity of assuming the pretended character of this new sort of +"_villany and treason_", in the hope of obliterating the memory of their +former real _villanies and treasons_; he did not foresee that in the +course of six months a formal manifesto on the part of himself and his +faction, written by his confederate Brissot, was to represent this +"_effervescence_" as another "_St. Bartholomew_" and speak of it as +"_having made humanity shudder, and sullied the Revolution forever_."[4] + +It is very remarkable that he takes upon himself to know the motives of +the assassins, their policy, and even what they "believed." How could +this be, if he had no connection with them? He praises the murderers for +not having taken as yet _all_ the lives of those who had, as he calls +it, "_presented themselves_ as victims to their fury." He paints the +miserable prisoners, who had been forcibly piled upon one another in +the Church of the Carmelites by his faction, as _presenting themselves_ +as victims to their fury,--as if death was their choice, or (allowing +the idiom of his language to make this equivocal) as if they were by +some accident _presented_ to the fury of their assassins: whereas he +knew that the leaders of the murderers sought these pure and innocent +victims in the places where they had deposited them and were sure to +find them. The very selection, which he praises as a _sort of justice_ +tempering their fury, proves beyond a doubt the foresight, deliberation, +and method with which this massacre was made. He knew that circumstance +on the very day of the commencement of the massacres, when, in all +probability, he had begun this letter,--for he presented it to the +Assembly on the very next. + +Whilst, however, he defends these acts, he is conscious that they will +appear in another light to the world. He therefore acquits the executive +power, that is, he acquits himself, (but only by his own assertion,) of +those acts of "_vengeance mixed with a sort of justice_," as an +"_excess_ which he could neither foresee nor prevent." He could not, he +says, foresee these acts, when he tells us the people of Paris had +sagacity so well to foresee the designs of the court on the 10th of +August,--to foresee them so well as to mark the precise epoch on which +they were to be executed, and to contrive to anticipate them on the very +day: he could not foresee these events, though he declares in this very +letter that victory _must_ bring with it some _excess_,--that "the sea +roars _long_ after the tempest." So far as to his foresight. As to his +disposition to prevent, if he had foreseen, the massacres of that +day,--this will be judged by his care in putting a stop to the massacre +then going on. This was no matter of foresight: he was in the very midst +of it. He does not so much as pretend that he had used any force to put +a stop to it. But if he had used any, the sanction given under his hand +to a sort of justice in the murderers was enough to disarm the +protecting force. + +That approbation of what they had already done had its natural effect on +the executive assassins, then in the paroxysm of their fury, as well as +on their employers, then in the midst of the execution of their +deliberate, cold-blooded system of murder. He did not at all differ from +either of them in the principle of those executions, but only in the +time of their duration,--and that only as it affected himself. This, +though to him a great consideration, was none to his confederates, who +were at the same time his rivals. They were encouraged to accomplish the +work they had in hand. They did accomplish it; and whilst this grave +moral epistle from a grave minister, recommending a cessation of their +work of "vengeance mingled with a sort of justice," was before a grave +assembly, the authors of the massacres proceeded without interruption in +their business for four days together,--that is, until the seventh of +that month, and until all the victims of the first proscription in Paris +and at Versailles and several other places were immolated at the shrine +of the grim Moloch of liberty and equality. All the priests, all the +loyalists, all the first essayists and novices of revolution in 1789, +that could be found, were promiscuously put to death. + +Through the whole of this long letter of Roland, it is curious to remark +how the nerve and vigor of his style, which had spoken so potently to +his sovereign, is relaxed when he addresses himself to the +_sans-culottes,_--how that strength and dexterity of arm, with which he +parries and beats down the sceptre, is enfeebled and lost when he comes +to fence with the poniard. When he speaks to the populace, he can no +longer be direct. The whole compass of the language is tried to find +synonymes and circumlocutions for massacre and murder. Things are never +called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes _agitation_, +sometimes _effervescence_, sometimes _excess_, sometimes too continued +an exercise of a _revolutionary power_. + +However, after what had passed had been praised, or excused, or +pardoned, he declares loudly against such proceedings _in future_. +Crimes had pioneered and made smooth the way for the march of the +virtues, and from that time order and justice and a sacred regard for +personal property were to become the rules for the new democracy. Here +Roland and the Brissotins leagued for their own preservation, by +endeavoring to preserve peace. This short story will render many of the +parts of Brissot's pamphlet, in which Roland's views and intentions are +so often alluded to, the more intelligible in themselves, and the more +useful in their application by the English reader. + +Under the cover of these artifices, Roland, Brissot, and their party +hoped to gain the bankers, merchants, substantial tradesmen, hoarders of +assignats, and purchasers of the confiscated lands of the clergy and +gentry to join with their party, as holding out some sort of security to +the effects which they possessed, whether these effects were the +acquisitions of fair commerce, or the gains of jobbing in the +misfortunes of their country and the plunder of their fellow-citizens. +In this design the party of Roland and Brissot succeeded in a great +degree. They obtained a majority in the National Convention. Composed, +however, as that assembly is, their majority was far from steady. But +whilst they appeared to gain the Convention, and many of the outlying +departments, they lost the city of Paris entirely and irrecoverably: it +was fallen into the hands of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton. Their +instruments were the _sans-culottes_, or rabble, who domineered in that +capital, and were wholly at the devotion of those incendiaries, and +received their daily pay. The people of property were of no consequence, +and trembled before Marat and his janizaries. As that great man had not +obtained the helm of the state, it was not yet come to his turn to act +the part of Brissot and his friends in the assertion of subordination +and regular government. But Robespierre has survived both these rival +chiefs, and is now the great patron of Jacobin order. + +To balance the exorbitant power of Paris, (which threatened to leave +nothing to the National Convention but a character as insignificant as +that which the first Assembly had assigned to the unhappy Louis the +Sixteenth,) the faction of Brissot, whose leaders were Roland, Petion, +Vergniaud, Isnard, Condorcet, &c., &c., &c., applied themselves to gain +the great commercial towns, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes, and +Bordeaux. The republicans of the Brissotin description, to whom the +concealed royalists, still very numerous, joined themselves, obtained a +temporary superiority in all these places. In Bordeaux, on account of +the activity and eloquence of some of its representatives, this +superiority was the most distinguished. This last city is seated on the +Garonne, or Gironde; and being the centre of a department named from +that river, the appellation of Girondists was given to the whole party. +These, and some other towns, declared strongly against the principles of +anarchy, and against the despotism of Paris. Numerous addresses were +sent to the Convention, promising to maintain its authority, which the +addressers were pleased to consider as legal and constitutional, though +chosen, not to compose an executive government, but to form a plan for a +Constitution. In the Convention measures were taken to obtain an armed +force from the several departments to maintain the freedom of that body, +and to provide for the personal safety of the members: neither of which, +from the 14th of July, 1789, to this hour, have been really enjoyed by +their assemblies sitting under any denomination. + +This scheme, which was well conceived, had not the desired success. +Paris, from which the Convention did not dare to move, though some +threats of such a departure were from time to time thrown out, was too +powerful for the party of the Gironde. Some of the proposed guards, but +neither with regularity nor in force, did indeed arrive: they were +debauched as fast as they came, or were sent to the frontiers. The game +played by the revolutionists in 1789, with respect to the French guards +of the unhappy king, was now played against the departmental guards, +called together for the protection of the revolutionists. Every part of +their own policy comes round, and strikes at their own power and their +own lives. + +The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in taking the alarm. They +had just reason to apprehend, that, if they permitted the smallest +delay, they should see themselves besieged by an army collected from all +parts of France. Violent threats were thrown out against that city in +the Assembly. Its total destruction was menaced. A very remarkable +expression was used in these debates,--"that in future times it might be +inquired on what part of the Seine Paris had stood." The faction which +ruled in Paris, too bold to be intimidated and too vigilant to be +surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn, they accused the +Girondists of a treasonable design to break _the republic one and +indivisible_ (whose unity they contended could only be preserved by the +supremacy of Paris) into a number of _confederate_ commonwealths. The +Girondin faction on this account received also the name of +_Federalists_. + +Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities. Paris, the mother of +equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this +alternative: either that city must be reduced to a mere member of the +federative republic, or the Convention, chosen, as they said, by all +France, was to be brought regularly and systematically under the +dominion of the Common Hall, and even of any one of the sections of +Paris. + +In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the great mother club of +the Jacobins was entirely in the Parisian interest. The Girondins no +longer dared to show their faces in that assembly. Nine tenths at least +of the Jacobin clubs, throughout France, adhered to the great +patriarchal Jacobiniere of Paris, to which they were (to use their own +term) _affiliated_. No authority of magistracy, judicial or executive, +had the least weight, whenever these clubs chose to interfere: and they +chose to interfere in everything, and on every occasion. All hope of +gaining them to the support of property, or to the acknowledgment of any +law but their own will, was evidently vain and hopeless. Nothing but an +armed insurrection against their anarchical authority could answer the +purpose of the Girondins. Anarchy was to be cured by rebellion, as it +had been caused by it. + +As a preliminary to this attempt on the Jacobins and the commons of +Paris, which it was hoped would be supported by all the remaining +property of France, it became absolutely necessary to prepare a +manifesto, laying before the public the whole policy, genius, character, +and conduct of the partisans of club government. To make this exposition +as fully and clearly as it ought to be made, it was of the same +unavoidable necessity to go through a series of transactions, in which +all those concerned in this Revolution were, at the several periods of +their activity, deeply involved. In consequence of this design, and +under these difficulties, Brissot prepared the following declaration of +his party, which he executed with no small ability; and in this manner +the whole mystery of the French Revolution was laid open in all its +parts. + +It is almost needless to mention to the reader the fate of the design to +which this pamphlet was to be subservient. The Jacobins of Paris were +more prompt than their adversaries. They were the readiest to resort to +what La Fayette calls the _most sacred of all duties, that of +insurrection_. Another era of holy insurrection commenced the 31st of +last May. As the first fruits of that insurrection grafted on +insurrection, and of that rebellion improving upon rebellion, the +sacred, irresponsible character of the members of the Convention was +laughed to scorn. They had themselves shown in their proceedings against +the late king how little the most fixed principles are to be relied +upon, in their revolutionary Constitution. The members of the Girondin +party in the Convention were seized upon, or obliged to save themselves +by flight. The unhappy author of this piece, with twenty of his +associates, suffered together on the scaffold, after a trial the +iniquity of which puts all description to defiance. + +The English reader will draw from this work of Brissot, and from the +result of the last struggles of this party, some useful lessons. He will +be enabled to judge of the information of those who have undertaken to +guide and enlighten us, and who, for reasons best known to themselves, +have chosen to paint the French Revolution and its consequences in +brilliant and flattering colors. They will know how to appreciate the +liberty of France, which has been so much magnified in England. They +will do justice to the wisdom and goodness of their sovereign and his +Parliament, who have put them into a state of defence, in the war +audaciously made upon us in favor of that kind of liberty. When we see +(as here we must see) in their true colors the character and policy of +our enemies, our gratitude will become an active principle. It will +produce a strong and zealous cooeperation with the efforts of our +government in favor of a Constitution under which we enjoy advantages +the full value of which the querulous weakness of human nature requires +sometimes the opportunity of a comparison to understand and to relish. + +Our confidence in those who watch for the public will not be lessened. +We shall be sensible that to alarm us in the late circumstances of our +affairs was not for our molestation, but for our security. We shall be +sensible that this alarm was not ill-timed,--and that it ought to have +been given, as it was given, before the enemy had time fully to mature +and accomplish their plans for reducing us to the condition of France, +as that condition is faithfully and without exaggeration described in +the following work. We now have our arms in our hands; we have the means +of opposing the sense, the courage, and the resources of England to the +deepest, the most craftily devised, the best combined, and the most +extensive design that ever was carried on, since the beginning of the +world, against all property, all order, all religion, all law, and all +real freedom. + +The reader is requested to attend to the part of this pamphlet which +relates to the conduct of the Jacobins with regard to the Austrian +Netherlands, which they call Belgia or Belgium. It is from page +seventy-two to page eighty-four of this translation. Here their views +and designs upon all their neighbors are fully displayed. Here the whole +mystery of their ferocious politics is laid open with the utmost +clearness. Here the manner in which they would treat every nation into +which they could introduce their doctrines and influence is distinctly +marked. We see that no nation was out of danger, and we see what the +danger was with which every nation was threatened. The writer of this +pamphlet throws the blame of several of the most violent of the +proceedings on the other party. He and his friends, at the time alluded +to, had a majority in the National Assembly. He admits that neither he +nor they _ever publicly_ opposed these measures; but he attributes their +silence to a fear of rendering themselves suspected. It is most certain, +that, whether from fear or from approbation, they never discovered any +dislike of those proceedings till Dumouriez was driven from the +Netherlands. But whatever their motive was, it is plain that the most +violent is, and since the Revolution has always been, the predominant +party. + +If Europe could not be saved without our interposition, (most certainly +it could not,) I am sure there is not an Englishman who would not blush +to be left out of the general effort made in favor of the general +safety. But we are not secondary parties in this war; _we are principals +in the danger, and ought to be principals in the exertion_. If any +Englishman asks whether the designs of the French assassins are confined +to the spot of Europe which they actually desolate, the citizen Brissot, +the author of this book, and the author of the declaration of war +against England, will give him his answer. He will find in this book, +that the republicans are divided into factions full of the most furious +and destructive animosity against each other; but he will find also that +there is one point in which they perfectly agree: that they are all +enemies alike to the government of all other nations, and only contend +with each other about the means of propagating their tenets and +extending their empire by conquest. + +It is true that in this present work, which the author professedly +designed for an appeal to foreign nations and posterity, he has dressed +up the philosophy of his own faction in as decent a garb as he could to +make her appearance in public; but through every disguise her hideous +figure may be distinctly seen. If, however, the reader still wishes to +see her in all her naked deformity, I would further refer him to a +private letter of Brissot, written towards the end of the last year, and +quoted in a late very able pamphlet of Mallet Du Pan. "We must" (says +our philosopher) "_set fire to the four corners of Europe_"; in that +alone is our safety. "_Dumouriez cannot suit us_. I always distrusted +him. Miranda is the general for us: he understands the _revolutionary +power_; he has _courage, lights_," &c.[5] Here everything is fairly +avowed in plain language. The triumph of philosophy is the universal +conflagration of Europe; the only real dissatisfaction with Dumouriez is +a suspicion of his moderation; and the secret motive of that preference +which in this very pamphlet the author gives to Miranda, though without +assigning his reasons, is declared to be the superior fitness of that +foreign adventurer for the purposes of subversion and destruction. On +the other hand, if there can be any man in this country so hardy as to +undertake the defence or the apology of the present monstrous usurpers +of France, and if it should be said in their favor, that it is not just +to credit the charges of their enemy Brissot against them, who have +actually tried and condemned him on the very same charges among others, +we are luckily supplied with the best possible evidence in support of +this part of his book against them: it comes from among themselves. +Camille Desmoulins published the History of the Brissotins in answer to +this very address of Brissot. It was the counter-manifesto of the last +holy revolution of the 31st of May; and the flagitious orthodoxy of his +writings at that period has been admitted in the late scrutiny of him by +the Jacobin Club, when they saved him from that guillotine "which he +grazed." In the beginning of his work he displays "the task of glory," +as he calls it, which presented itself at the opening of the Convention. +All is summed up in two points: "To create the French Republic; _to +disorganize Europe; perhaps to purge it of its tyrants by the eruption +of the volcanic principles of equality_."[6] The coincidence is exact; +the proof is complete and irresistible. + +In a cause like this, and in a time like the present, there is no +neutrality. They who are not actively, and with decision and energy, +against Jacobinism are its partisans. They who do not dread it love it. +It cannot be viewed with indifference. It is a thing made to produce a +powerful impression on the feelings. Such is the nature of Jacobinism, +such is the nature of man, that this system must be regarded either with +enthusiastic admiration, or with the highest degree of detestation, +resentment, and horror. + +Another great lesson may be taught by this book, and by the fortune of +the author and his party: I mean a lesson drawn from the consequences of +engaging in daring innovations from an hope that we may be able to limit +their mischievous operation at our pleasure, and by our policy to secure +ourselves against the effect of the evil examples we hold out to the +world. This lesson is taught through almost all the important pages of +history; but never has it been taught so clearly and so awfully as at +this hour. The revolutionists who have just suffered an ignominious +death, under the sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, (a tribunal +composed of those with whom they had triumphed in the total destruction +of the ancient government,) were by no means ordinary men, or without +very considerable talents and resources. But with all their talents and +resources, and the apparent momentary extent of their power, we see the +fate of their projects, their power, and their persons. We see before +our eyes the absurdity of thinking to establish order upon principles of +confusion, or with the materials and instruments of rebellion to build +up a solid and stable government. + +Such partisans of a republic amongst us as may not have the worst +intentions will see that the principles, the plans, the manners, the +morals, and the whole system of France is altogether as adverse to the +formation and duration of any rational scheme of a republic as it is to +that of a monarchy, absolute or limited. It is, indeed, a system which +can only answer the purposes of robbers and murderers. + +The translator has only to say for himself, that he has found some +difficulty in this version. His original author, through haste, perhaps, +or through the perturbation of a mind filled with a great and arduous +enterprise, is often obscure. There are some passages, too, in which his +language requires to be first translated into French,--at least into +such French as the Academy would in former times have tolerated. He +writes with great force and vivacity; but the language, like everything +else in his country, has undergone a revolution. The translator thought +it best to be as literal as possible, conceiving such a translation +would perhaps be the most fit to convey the author's peculiar mode of +thinking. In this way the translator has no credit for style, but he +makes it up in fidelity. Indeed, the facts and observations are so much +more important than the style, that no apology is wanted for producing +them in any intelligible manner. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding +Monday.--TRANSLATOR. + +[3] Letter to the National Assembly, signed, _The Minister of the +Interior_, ROLAND; dated Paris, Sept. 3rd, _4th year of Liberty_. + +[4] See p. 12 and p. 13 of this translation. + +[5] See the translation of Mallet Du Pan's work, printed for Owen, p. +53. + +[6] See the translation of the History of the Brissotins by Camille +Desmoulins, printed for Owen, p. 2. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + [The Address of M. Brissot to his Constituents being now almost + forgotten, it has been thought right to add, as an Appendix, + that part of it to which Mr. Burke points our particular + attention and upon which he so forcibly comments in his + Preface.] + + +Three sorts of anarchy have ruined our affairs in Belgium. + +The anarchy of the administration of Pache, which has completely +disorganized the supply of our armies; which by that disorganization +reduced the army of Dumouriez to stop in the middle of its conquests; +which struck it motionless through the months of November and December; +which hindered it from joining Beurnonville and Custine, and from +forcing the Prussians and Austrians to repass the Rhine, and afterwards +from putting themselves in a condition to invade Holland sooner than +they did. + +To this state of ministerial anarchy it is necessary to join that other +anarchy which disorganized the troops, and occasioned their habits of +pillage; and lastly, that anarchy which created the revolutionary power, +and forced the union to France of the countries we had invaded, before +things were ripe for such a measure. + +Who could, however, doubt the frightful evils that were occasioned in +our armies by that doctrine of anarchy which, under the shadow of +equality of _right_, would establish equality of fact? This is universal +equality, the scourge of society, as the other is the support of +society: an anarchical doctrine which would level all things, talents +and ignorance, virtues and vices, places, usages, and services; a +doctrine which begot that fatal project of organizing the army, +presented by Dubois de Crance, to which it will be indebted for a +complete disorganization. + +Mark the date of the presentation of the system of this equality of +fact, entire equality. It had been projected and decreed even at the +very opening of the Dutch campaign. If any project could encourage the +want of discipline in the soldiers, any scheme could disgust and banish +good officers, and throw all things into confusion at the moment when +order alone could give victory, it is this project, in truth, so +stubbornly defended by the anarchists, and transplanted into their +ordinary tactic. + +How could they expect that there should exist any discipline, any +subordination, when even in the camp they permit motions, censures, and +denunciations of officers and of generals? Does not such a disorder +destroy all the respect that is due to superiors, and all the mutual +confidence without which success cannot be hoped for? For the spirit of +distrust makes the soldier suspicious, and intimidates the general. The +first discerns treason in every danger; the second, always placed +between the necessity of conquest and the image of the scaffold, dares +not raise himself to bold conception, and those heights of courage which +electrify an army and insure victory. Turenne, in our time, would have +carried his head to the scaffold; for he was sometimes beat: but the +reason why he more frequently conquered was, that his discipline was +severe; it was, that his soldiers, confiding in his talents, never +muttered discontent instead of fighting. Without reciprocal confidence +between the soldier and the general, there can be no army, no victory, +especially in a free government. + +Is it not to the same system of anarchy, of equalization, and want of +subordination, which has been recommended in some clubs and defended +even in the Convention, that we owe the pillages, the murders, the +enormities of all kinds, which it was difficult for the officers to put +a stop to, from the general spirit of insubordination,--excesses which +have rendered the French name odious to the Belgians? Again, is it not +to this system of anarchy, and of robbery, that we are indebted for the +_revolutionary power_, which has so justly aggravated the hatred of the +Belgians against France? + +What did enlightened republicans think before the 10th of August, men +who wished for liberty, _not only for their own country, but for all +Europe? They believed that they could generally establish it by exciting +the governed against the governors, in letting the people see the +facility and the advantages of such insurrections_. + +But how can the people be led to that point? By the example of good +government established among us; by the example of order; by the care of +spreading nothing but moral ideas among them: to respect their +properties and their rights; to respect their prejudices, even when we +combat them: by disinterestedness in defending the people; by a zeal to +extend the spirit of liberty amongst them. + +This system was at first followed.[7] Excellent pamphlets from the pen +of Condorcet prepared the people for liberty; the 10th of August, the +republican decrees, the battle of Valmy, the retreat of the Prussians, +the victory of Jemappes, all spoke in favor of France: all was rapidly +destroyed by _the revolutionary power_. Without doubt, good intentions +made the majority of the Assembly adopt it; they would plant the tree of +liberty in a foreign soil, under the shade of a people already free. To +the eyes of the people of Belgium it seemed but the mask of a new +foreign tyranny. This opinion was erroneous; I will suppose it so for a +moment; but still this opinion of Belgium deserved to be considered. In +general, we have always considered our own opinions and our own +intentions rather than the people whose cause we defend. We have given +those people a will: that is to say, we have more than ever alienated +them from liberty. + +How could the Belgic people believe themselves free, since we exercise +for them, and over them, the rights of sovereignty,--when, without +consulting them, we suppress, all in a mass, their ancient usages, their +abuses, their prejudices, those classes of society which without doubt +are contrary to the spirit of liberty, but the utility of whose +destruction was not as yet proved to them? How could they believe +themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we +thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they +believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship, +which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their +liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when +we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice +of seeing them govern; when we seized their revenues, their domains, and +riches, to the profit of the nation; when we carried to the very censer +those hands which they regarded as profane? Doubtless these operations +were founded on principles; but those principles ought to have had the +consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice; +otherwise they necessarily became our most cruel enemies. + +Arrived ourselves at the last bounds of liberty and equality, trampling +under our feet all human superstitions, (after, however, a four years' +war with them,) we attempt all at once to raise to the same eminence +men, strangers even to the first elementary principles of liberty, and +plunged for fifteen hundred years in ignorance and superstition; we +wished to force men to see, when a thick cataract covered their eyes, +even before we had removed that cataract; we would force men to see, +whose dulness of character had raised a mist before their eyes, and +before that character was altered.[8] + +Do you believe that the doctrine which now prevails in France would have +found many partisans among us in 1789? No: a revolution in ideas and in +prejudices is not made with that rapidity; it moves gradually; it does +not escalade. + +Philosophy does not inspire by violence, nor by seduction; nor is it the +sword that begets love of liberty. + +Joseph the Second also borrowed the language of philosophy, when he +wished to suppress the monks in Belgium, and to seize upon their +revenues. There was seen on him a mask only of philosophy, covering the +hideous countenance of a greedy despot; and the people ran to arms. +Nothing better than another kind of despotism has been seen in the +_revolutionary power_. + +We have seen in the commissioners of the National Convention nothing but +proconsuls working the mine of Belgium for the profit of the French +nation, seeking to conquer it for the sovereign of Paris,--either to +aggrandize his empire, or to share the burdens of the debts, and furnish +a rich prize to the robbers who domineered in France. + +Do you believe the Belgians have ever been the dupes of those +well-rounded periods which they vended in the pulpit in order to +familiarize them to the idea of an union with France? Do you believe +they were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions, made by what +is called acclamation, for their union, of which corruption paid one +part,[9] and fear forced the remainder? Who, at this time of day, is +unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show? +_Who does not know the farces of primary assemblies, composed of a +president, of a secretary, and of some assistants, whose day's work was +paid for?_ No: it is not by means which belong only to thieves and +despots that the foundations of liberty can be laid in an enslaved +country. It is not by those means, that a new-born republic, a people +who know not yet the elements of republican governments, can be united +to us. Even slaves do not suffer themselves to be seduced by such +artifices; and if they have not the strength to resist, they have at +least the sense to know how to appreciate the value of such an attempt. + +If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their +minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not +despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to +perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of +superstition, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for +this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they +incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty +thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to +France the specie of which she stood in need. + +But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our +army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium? +Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our +hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the +penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No! +despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted +into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from +that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the +grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed +their new tyrants. Our commissioners address them in this sort: "You +have nobles and priests among you: drive them out without delay, or we +will neither be your brethren nor your patrons." They answered: "Give us +but time; only leave to us the care of reforming these institutions." +Our answer to them was: "No! it must be at the moment, it must be on the +spot; or we will treat you as enemies, we will abandon you to the +resentment of the Austrians." + +What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they +were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and +to bow down their heads before their masters. They did hold their +tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free assent. + +Have not the strangest artifices been adopted to prevent that people +from retreating, and to constrain them to an union? It was foreseen, +that, as long as they were unable to effect an union, the States would +preserve the supreme authority amongst themselves. Under pretence, +therefore, of relieving the people, and of exercising the sovereignty in +their right, at one stroke they abolished all the duties and taxes, they +shut up all the treasuries. From that time no more receipts, no more +public money, no more means of paying the salaries of any man in office +appointed by the States. Thus was anarchy organized amongst the people, +that they might be compelled to throw themselves into our arms. It +became necessary for those who administered their affairs, under the +penalty of being exposed to sedition, and in order to avoid their +throats being cut, to have recourse to the treasury of France. What did +they find in this treasury? ASSIGNATS.--These assignats were advanced at +par to Belgium. By this means, on the one hand, they naturalized this +currency in that country, and on the other, they expected to make a good +pecuniary transaction. Thus it is that covetousness cut its throat with +its own hands. _The Belgians have seen in this forced introduction of +assignats nothing but a double robbery_; and they have only the more +violently hated the union with France. + +Recollect the solicitude of the Belgians on that subject. With what +earnestness did they conjure you to take off a retroactive effect from +these assignats, and to prevent them from being applied to the payment +of debts that were contracted anterior to the union! + +Did not this language energetically enough signify that they looked +upon the assignats as a leprosy, and the union as a deadly contagion? + +And yet what regard was paid to so just a demand? It was buried in the +Committee of Finance. That committee wanted to make anarchy the means of +an union. They only busied themselves in making the Belgic Provinces +subservient to their finances. + +Cambon said loftily before the Belgians themselves: The Belgian war +costs us hundreds of millions. Their ordinary revenues, and even some +extraordinary taxes, will not answer to our reimbursements; and yet we +have occasion for them. The mortgage of our assignats draws near its +end. What must be done? Sell the Church property of Brabant. There is a +mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling). How shall +we get possession of them? By an immediate union. Instantly they decreed +this union. Men's minds were not disposed to it. What does it signify? +Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they +secretly order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to dispose of four or +five hundred thousand livres (20,000_l._ sterling) _to make the +vagabonds of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the union in all +the States_. But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak +minority in our favor. What does that signify? _Revolutions_, said they, +_are made only by minorities. It is the minority which has made the +Revolution of France; it is a minority which, has made the people +triumph_. + +The Belgic Provinces were not sufficient to satisfy the voracious +cravings of this financial system. Cambon wanted to unite everything, +that he might sell everything. Thus he forced the union of Savoy. In +the war with Holland, he saw nothing but gold to seize on, and +assignats to sell at par.[11] "Do not let us dissemble," said he one day +to the Committee of General Defence, in presence even of the patriot +deputies of Holland, "you have no ecclesiastical goods to offer us for +our indemnity. IT IS A REVOLUTION IN THEIR COUNTERS AND IRON CHESTS[12] +that must be made amongst the DUTCH." The word was said, and the bankers +Abema and Van Staphorst understood it. + +Do you think that that word has not been worth an army to the +Stadtholder? that it has not cooled the ardor of the Dutch patriots? +that it has not commanded the vigorous defence of Williamstadt? + +Do you believe that the patriots of Amsterdam, when they read the +preparatory decree which gave France an execution on their goods,--do +you believe that those patriots would not have liked better to have +remained under the government of the Stadtholder, who took from them no +more than a fixed portion of their property, than to pass under that of +a revolutionary power, which would make a complete revolution in their +bureaus and strong-boxes, and reduce them to wretchedness and rags?[13] +Robbery and anarchy, instead of encouraging, will always stifle +revolutions. + +"But why," they object to me, "have not you and your friends chosen to +expose these measures in the rostrum of the National Convention? Why +have you not opposed yourself to all these fatal projects of union?" + +There are two answers to make here,--one general, one particular. + +You complain of the silence of honest men! You quite forget, then, +honest men are the objects of your suspicion. Suspicion, if it does not +stain the soul of a courageous man, at least arrests his thoughts in +their passage to his lips. The suspicions of a good citizen freeze those +men whom the calumny of the wicked could not stop in their progress. + +You complain of their silence! You forget, then, that you have often +established an insulting equality between them and men covered with +crimes and made up of ignominy. + +You forget, then, that you have twenty times left them covered with +opprobrium by your galleries. + +You forget, then, that you have not thought yourself sufficiently +powerful to impose silence upon these galleries. + +What ought a wise man to do in the midst of these circumstances? He is +silent. He waits the moment when the passions give way; he waits till +reason shall preside, and till the multitude shall listen to her voice. + +What has been the tactic displayed during all these unions? Cambon, +incapable of political calculation, boasting his ignorance in the +diplomatic, flattering the ignorant multitude, lending his name and +popularity to the anarchists, seconded by their vociferations, denounced +incessantly, as counter-revolutionists, those intelligent persons who +were desirous at least of having things discussed. To oppose the acts of +union appeared to Cambon an overt act of treason. The wish so much as to +reflect and to deliberate was in his eyes a great crime. He calumniated +our intentions. The voice of every deputy, especially my voice, would +infallibly have been stifled. There were spies on the very monosyllables +that escaped our lips. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The most seditious libels upon all governments, in order to excite +insurrection in Spain, Holland, and other countries,--TRANSLATOR. + +[8] It may not be amiss, once for all, to remark on the style of all the +philosophical politicians of France. Without any distinction in their +several sects and parties, they agree in treating all nations who will +not conform their government, laws, manners, and religion to the new +French fashion, as _an herd of slaves_. They consider the content with +which men live under those governments as stupidity, and all attachment +to religion as the effect of the grossest ignorance. + +The people of the Netherlands, by their Constitution, are as much +entitled to be called free as any nation upon earth. The Austrian +government (until some wild attempts the Emperor Joseph made on the +French principle, but which have been since abandoned by the court of +Vienna) has been remarkably mild. No people were more at their ease than +the Flemish subjects, particularly the lower classes. It is curious to +hear this great oculist talk of couching the _cataract_ by which the +Netherlands were _blinded_, and hindered from seeing in its proper +colors the beautiful vision of the French republic, which he has himself +painted with so masterly an hand. That people must needs be dull, blind, +and brutalized by fifteen hundred years of superstition, (the time +elapsed since the introduction of Christianity amongst them,) who could +prefer their former state to the _present state of France_! The reader +will remark, that the only difference between Brissot and his +adversaries is in the _mode_ of bringing other nations into the pale of +the French republic. _They_ would abolish the order and classes of +society, and all religion, at a stroke: Brissot would have just the same +thing done, but with more address and management.--TRANSLATOR. + +[9] See the correspondence of Dumouriez, especially the letter of the +12th of March. + +[10] They have not as yet proceeded farther with regard to the English +dominions. Here we only see as yet _the good writings_ of Paine, and of +his learned associates, and the labors of the _missionary clubs_, and +other zealous instructors.--TRANSLATOR. + +[11] The same thing will happen in Savoy. The persecution of the clergy +has soured people's minds. The commissaries represent them to us as good +Frenchmen. I put them to the proof. Where are the legions? How! thirty +thousand Savoyards,--are they not armed to defend, in concert with us, +their liberty?--BRISSOT. + +[12] _Portefeuille_ is the word in the original. It signifies all +movable property which may be represented in bonds, notes, bills, +stocks, or any sort of public or private securities. I do not know of a +single word in English that answers it: I have therefore substituted +that of _Iron Chests_, as coming nearest to the idea.--TRANSLATOR. + +[13] In the original _les reduire a la sansculotterie_. + + + + +A + +LETTER + +TO + +WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., + +OCCASIONED BY + +THE ACCOUNT GIVEN IN A NEWSPAPER OF THE SPEECH MADE IN THE HOUSE OF +LORDS BY THE **** OF ******* + +IN THE DEBATE + +CONCERNING LORD FITZWILLIAM. + +1795. + + + + +LETTER. + + +BEACONSFIELD, May 28,1795. + +My dear sir,--I have been told of the voluntary which, for the +entertainment of the House of Lords, has been lately played by his Grace +the **** of *******, a great deal at my expense, and a little at his +own. I confess I should have liked the composition rather better, if it +had been quite new. But every man has his taste, and his Grace is an +admirer of ancient music. + +There may be sometimes too much even of a good thing. A toast is good, +and a bumper is not bad: but the best toasts may be so often repeated as +to disgust the palate, and ceaseless rounds of bumpers may nauseate and +overload the stomach. The ears of the most steady-voting politicians may +at last be stunned with "three times three." I am sure I have been very +grateful for the flattering remembrance made of me in the toasts of the +Revolution Society, and of other clubs formed on the same laudable plan. +After giving the brimming honors to Citizen Thomas Paine and to Citizen +Dr. Priestley, the gentlemen of these clubs seldom failed to bring me +forth in my turn, and to drink, "Mr. Burke, and thanks to him for the +discussion he has provoked." + +I found myself elevated with this honor; for, even by the collision of +resistance, to be the means of striking out sparkles of truth, if not +merit, is at least felicity. + +Here I might have rested. But when I found that the great advocate, Mr. +Erskine, condescended to resort to these bumper toasts, as the pure and +exuberant fountains of politics and of rhetoric, (as I hear he did, in +three or four speeches made in defence of certain worthy citizens,) I +was rather let down a little. Though still somewhat proud of myself, I +was not quite so proud of my voucher. Though he is no idolater of fame, +in some way or other Mr. Erskine will always do himself honor. Methinks, +however, in following the precedents of these toasts, he seemed to do +more credit to his diligence as a special pleader than to his invention +as an orator. To those who did not know the abundance of his resources, +both of genius and erudition, there was something in it that indicated +the want of a good assortment, with regard to richness and variety, in +the magazine of topics and commonplaces which I suppose he keeps by him, +in imitation of Cicero and other renowned declaimers of antiquity. + +Mr. Erskine supplied something, I allow, from the stores of his +imagination, in metamorphosing the jovial toasts of clubs into solemn +special arguments at the bar. So far the thing showed talent: however, I +must still prefer the bar of the tavern to the other bar. The toasts at +the first hand were better than the arguments at the second. Even when +the toasts began to grow old as sarcasms, they were washed down with +still older pricked election Port; then the acid of the wine made some +amends for the want of anything piquant in the wit. But when his Grace +gave them a second transformation, and brought out the vapid stuff +which had wearied the clubs and disgusted the courts, the drug made up +of the bottoms of rejected bottles, all smelling so wofully of the cork +and of the cask, and of everything except the honest old lamp, and when +that sad draught had been farther infected with the jail pollution of +the Old Bailey, and was dashed and brewed and ineffectually stummed +again into a senatorial exordium in the House of Lords, I found all the +high flavor and mantling of my honors tasteless, flat, and stale. +Unluckily, the new tax on wine is felt even in the greatest fortunes, +and his Grace submits to take up with the heel-taps of Mr. Erskine. + +I have had the ill or good fortune to provoke two great men of this age +to the publication of their opinions: I mean Citizen Thomas Paine, and +his Grace the **** of *******. I am not so great a leveller as to put +these two great men on a par, either in the state, or the republic of +letters; but "the field of glory is a field for all." It is a large one, +indeed; and we all may run, God knows where, in chase of glory, over the +boundless expanse of that wild heath whose horizon always flies before +us. I assure his Grace, (if he will yet give me leave to call him so,) +whatever may be said on the authority of the clubs or of the bar, that +Citizen Paine (who, they will have it, hunts with me in couples, and who +only moves as I drag him along) has a sufficient activity in his own +native benevolence to dispose and enable him to take the lead for +himself. He is ready to blaspheme his God, to insult his king, and to +libel the Constitution of his country, without any provocation from me +or any encouragement from his Grace. I assure him that I shall not be +guilty of the injustice of charging Mr. Paine's next work against +religion and human society upon his Grace's excellent speech in the +House of Lords. I farther assure this noble Duke that I neither +encouraged nor provoked that worthy citizen to seek for plenty, liberty, +safety, justice, or lenity, in the famine, in the prisons, in the +decrees of Convention, in the revolutionary tribunal, and in the +guillotine of Paris, rather than quietly to take up with what he could +find in the glutted markets, the unbarricadoed streets, the drowsy Old +Bailey judges, or, at worst, the airy, wholesome pillory of Old England. +The choice of country was his own taste. The writings were the effects +of his own zeal. In spite of his friend Dr. Priestley, he was a free +agent. I admit, indeed, that my praises of the British government, +loaded with all its incumbrances, clogged with its peers and its beef, +its parsons and its pudding, its commons and its beer, and its dull +slavish liberty of going about just as one pleases, had something to +provoke a jockey of Norfolk,[14] who was inspired with the resolute +ambition of becoming a citizen of France, to do something which might +render him worthy of naturalization in that grand asylum of persecuted +merit, something which should entitle him to a place in the senate of +the adoptive country of all the gallant, generous, and humane. This, I +say, was possible. But the truth is, (with great deference to his Grace +I say it,) Citizen Paine acted without any provocation at all; he acted +solely from the native impulses of his own excellent heart. + +His Grace, like an able orator, as he is, begins with giving me a great +deal of praise for talents which I do not possess. He does this to +entitle himself, on the credit of this gratuitous kindness, to +exaggerate my abuse of the parts which his bounty, and not that of +Nature, has bestowed upon me. In this, too, he has condescended to copy +Mr. Erskine. These priests (I hope they will excuse me, I mean priests +of the Rights of Man) begin by crowning me with their flowers and their +fillets, and bedewing me with their odors, as a preface to their +knocking me on the head with their consecrated axes. I have injured, say +they, the Constitution; and I have abandoned the Whig party and the Whig +principles that I professed. I do not mean, my dear Sir, to defend +myself against his Grace. I have not much interest in what the world +shall think or say of me; as little has the world an interest in what I +shall think or say of any one in it; and I wish that his Grace had +suffered an unhappy man to enjoy, in his retreat, the melancholy +privileges of obscurity and sorrow. At any rate, I have spoken and I +have written on the subject. If I have written or spoken so poorly as to +be quite forgot, a fresh apology will not make a more lasting +impression. "I must let the tree lie as it falls." Perhaps I must take +some shame to myself. I confess that I have acted on my own principles +of government, and not on those of his Grace, which are, I dare say, +profound and wise, but which I do not pretend to understand. As to the +party to which he alludes, and which has long taken its leave of me, I +believe the principles of the book which he condemns are very +conformable to the opinions of many of the most considerable and most +grave in that description of politicians. A few, indeed, who, I admit, +are equally respectable in all points, differ from me, and talk his +Grace's language. I am too feeble to contend with them. They have the +field to themselves. There are others, very young and very ingenious +persons, who form, probably, the largest part of what his Grace, I +believe, is pleased to consider as that party. Some of them were not +born into the world, and all of them were children, when I entered into +that connection. I give due credit to the censorial brow, to the broad +phylacteries, and to the imposing gravity of those magisterial rabbins +and doctors in the cabala of political science. I admit that "wisdom is +as the gray hair to man, and that learning is like honorable old age." +But, at a time when liberty is a good deal talked of, perhaps I might be +excused, if I caught something of the general indocility. It might not +be surprising, if I lengthened my chain a link or two, and, in an age of +relaxed discipline, gave a trifling indulgence to my own notions. If +that could be allowed, perhaps I might sometimes (by accident, and +without an unpardonable crime) trust as much to my own very careful and +very laborious, though perhaps somewhat purblind disquisitions, as to +their soaring, intuitive, eagle-eyed authority. But the modern liberty +is a precious thing. It must not be profaned by too vulgar an use. It +belongs only to the chosen few, who are born to the hereditary +representation of the whole democracy, and who leave nothing at all, no, +not the offal, to us poor outcasts of the plebeian race. + +Amongst those gentlemen who came to authority as soon or sooner than +they came of age I do not mean to include his Grace. With all those +native titles to empire over our minds which distinguish the others, he +has a large share of experience. He certainly ought to understand the +British Constitution better than I do. He has studied it in the +fundamental part. For one election I have seen, he has been concerned in +twenty. Nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his +speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend +with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With +thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles +been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst +he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has +he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great +sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, the independence, +and the sobriety of elections, and to give a check, if possible, to the +ruinous charges that go nearly to the destruction of the right of +election itself. + +Amidst these his labors, his Grace will be pleased to forgive me, if my +zeal, less enlightened, to be sure, than his by midnight lamps and +studies, has presumed to talk too favorably of this Constitution, and +even to say something sounding like approbation of that body which has +the honor to reckon his Grace at the head of it, Those who dislike this +partiality, or, if his Grace pleases, this flattery of mine, have a +comfort at hand. I may be refuted and brought to shame by the most +convincing of all refutations, a practical refutation. Every individual +peer for himself may show that I was ridiculously wrong; the whole body +of those noble persons may refute me for the whole corps. If they +please, they are more powerful advocates against themselves than a +thousand scribblers like me can be in their favor. If I were even +possessed of those powers which his Grace, in order to heighten my +offence, is pleased to attribute to me, there would be little +difference. The eloquence of Mr. Erskine might save Mr. ***** from the +gallows, but no eloquence could save Mr. Jackson from the effects of his +own potion. + +In that unfortunate book of mine, which is put in the _Index +Expurgatorius_ of the modern Whigs, I might have spoken too favorably +not only of those who wear coronets, but of those who wear crowns. +Kings, however, have not only long arms, but strong ones too. A great +Northern potentate, for instance, is able in one moment, and with one +bold stroke of his diplomatic pen, to efface all the volumes which I +could write in a century, or which the most laborious publicists of +Germany ever carried to the fair of Leipsic, as an apology for monarchs +and monarchy. Whilst I, or any other poor, puny, private sophist, was +defending the Declaration of Pilnitz, his Majesty might refute me by the +Treaty of Basle. Such a monarch may destroy one republic because it had +a king at its head, and he may balance this extraordinary act by +founding another republic that has cut off the head of its king. I +defended that great potentate for associating in a grand alliance for +the preservation of the old governments of Europe; but he puts me to +silence by delivering up all those governments (his own virtually +included) to the new system of France. If he is accused before the +Parisian tribunal (constituted for the trial of kings) for having +polluted the soil of liberty by the tracks of his disciplined slaves, he +clears himself by surrendering the finest parts of Germany (with a +handsome cut of his own territories) to the offended majesty of the +regicides of France. Can I resist this? Am I responsible for it, if, +with a torch in his hand, and a rope about his neck, he makes _amende +honorable_ to the _sans-culotterie_ of the Republic one and indivisible? +In that humiliating attitude, in spite of my protests, he may supplicate +pardon for his menacing proclamations, and, as an expiation to those +whom he failed to terrify with his threats, he may abandon those whom he +had seduced by his promises. He may sacrifice the royalists of France, +whom he had called to his standard, as a salutary example to those who +shall adhere to their native sovereign, or shall confide in any other +who undertakes the cause of oppressed kings and of loyal subjects. + +How can I help it, if this high-minded prince will subscribe to the +invectives which the regicides have made against all kings, and +particularly against himself? How can I help it, if this royal +propagandist will preach the doctrine of the Rights of Men? Is it my +fault, if his professors of literature read lectures on that code in all +his academies, and if all the pensioned managers of the newspapers in +his dominions diffuse it throughout Europe in an hundred journals? Can +it be attributed to me, if he will initiate all his grenadiers and all +his hussars in these high mysteries? Am I responsible, if he will make +_Le Droit de l'Homme_, or _La Souverainte du Peuple_ the favorite parole +of his military orders? Now that his troops are to act with the brave +legions of freedom, no doubt he will fit them for their fraternity. He +will teach the Prussians to think, to feel, and to act like them, and to +emulate the glories of the _regiment de l'echafaud_. He will employ the +illustrious Citizen Santerre, the general of his new allies, to instruct +the dull Germans how they shall conduct themselves towards persons who, +like Louis the Sixteenth, (whose cause and person he once took into his +protection,) shall dare, without the sanction of the people, or with it, +to consider themselves as hereditary kings. Can I arrest this great +potentate in his career of glory? Am I blamable in recommending virtue +and religion as the true foundation of all monarchies, because the +protector of the three religions of the Westphalian arrangement, to +ingratiate himself with the Republic of Philosophy, shall abolish all +the three? It is not in my power to prevent the grand patron of the +Reformed Church, if he chooses it, from annulling the Calvinistic +sabbath, and establishing the _decadi_ of atheism in all his states. He +may even renounce and abjure his favorite mysticism in the Temple of +Reason. In these things, at least, he is truly despotic. He has now +shaken hands with everything which at first had inspired him with +horror. It would be curious indeed to see (what I shall not, however, +travel so far to see) the ingenious devices and the elegant +transparencies which, on the restoration of peace and the commencement +of Prussian liberty, are to decorate Potsdam and Charlottenburg +_festeggianti_. What shades of his armed ancestors of the House of +Brandenburg will the committee of _Illumines_ raise up in the +opera-house of Berlin, to dance a grand ballet in the rejoicings for +this auspicious event? Is it a grand master of the Teutonic order, or is +it the great Elector? Is it the first king of Prussia, or the last? or +is the whole long line (long, I mean, _a parte ante_) to appear like +Banquo's royal procession in the tragedy of Macbeth? + +How can I prevent all these arts of royal policy, and all these displays +of royal magnificence? How can I prevent the successor of Frederick the +Great from aspiring to a new, and, in this age, unexampled kind of +glory? Is it in my power to say that he shall not make his confessions +in the style of St. Austin or of Rousseau? that he shall not assume the +character of the penitent and flagellant, and, grafting monkery on +philosophy, strip himself of his regal purple, clothe his gigantic limbs +in the sackcloth and the _hair-shirt_, and exercise on his broad +shoulders the disciplinary scourge of the holy order of the +_Sans-Culottes_? It is not in me to hinder kings from making new orders +of religious and martial knighthood. I am not Hercules enough to uphold +those orbs which the Atlases of the world are so desirous of shifting +from their weary shoulders. What can be done against the magnanimous +resolution of the great to accomplish the degradation and the ruin of +their own character and situation? + +What I say of the German princes, that I say of all the other dignities +and all the other institutions of the Holy Roman Empire. If they have a +mind to destroy themselves, they may put their advocates to silence and +their advisers to shame. I have often praised the Aulic Council. It is +very true, I did so. I thought it a tribunal as well formed as human +wisdom could form a tribunal for coercing the great, the rich, and the +powerful,--for obliging them to submit their necks to the imperial laws, +and to those of Nature and of nations: a tribunal well conceived for +extirpating peculation, corruption, and oppression from all the parts of +that vast, heterogeneous mass, called the Germanic body. I should not be +inclined to retract these praises upon any of the ordinary lapses into +which human infirmity will fall; they might still stand, though some of +their _conclusums_ should taste of the prejudices of country or of +faction, whether political or religious. Some degree even of corruption +should not make me think them guilty of suicide; but if we could suppose +that the Aulic Council, not regarding duty or even common decorum, +listening neither to the secret admonitions of conscience nor to the +public voice of fame, some of the members basely abandoning their post, +and others continuing in it only the more infamously to betray it, +should give a judgment so shameless and so prostitute, of such monstrous +and even portentous corruption, that no example in the history of human +depravity, or even in the fictions of poetic imagination, could possibly +match it,--if it should be a judgment which, with cold, unfeeling +cruelty, after long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent +people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of +the finest countries upon earth to ravage and desolation,--does any one +think that any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and bullying +insolence of their own, can save them from the ruin that must fell on +all institutions of dignity or of authority that are perverted from +their purport to the oppression of human nature in others and to its +disgrace in themselves? As the wisdom of men mates such institutions, +the folly of men destroys them. Whatever we may pretend, there is always +more in the soundness of the materials than in the fashion of the work. +The order of a good building is something. But if it be wholly declined +from its perpendicular, if the cement is loose and incoherent, if the +stones are scaling with every change of the weather, and the whole +toppling on our heads, what matter is it whether we are crushed by a +Corinthian or a Doric ruin? The fine form of a vessel is a matter of use +and of delight. It is pleasant to see her decorated with cost and art. +But what signifies even the mathematical truth of her form,--what +signify all the art and cost with which she can be carved, and painted, +and gilded, and covered with decorations from stem to stern,--what +signify all her rigging and sails, her flags, her pendants, and her +streamers,--what signify even her cannon, her stores, and her +provisions, if all her planks and timbers be unsound and rotten? + + Quamvis Pontica pinus, + Silvae filia nobilis, + Jactes et genus et nomen inutile. + +I have been stimulated, I know not how, to give you this trouble by what +very few except myself would think worth any trouble at all. In a speech +in the House of Lords, I have been attacked for the defence of a scheme +of government in which that body inheres, and in which alone it can +exist. Peers of Great Britain may become as penitent as the sovereign of +Prussia. They may repent of what they have done in assertion of the +honor of their king, and in favor of their own safety. But never the +gloom that lowers over the fortune of the cause, nor anything which the +great may do towards hastening their own fall, can make me repent of +what I have done by pen or voice (the only arms I possess) in favor of +the order of things into which I was born and in which I fondly hoped to +die. + +In the long series of ages which have furnished the matter of history, +never was so beautiful and so august a spectacle presented to the moral +eye as Europe afforded the day before the Revolution in France. I knew, +indeed, that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own +danger. In one part of the society it caused laxity and debility; in the +other it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false philosophy +passed from academies into courts; and the great themselves were +infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, +which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed +solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused, +weakened, and perverted. General wealth loosened morals, relaxed +vigilance, and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in +the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions +of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they found +their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public +estimate) of their own worth. When it was once discovered by the +Revolution in France that a struggle between establishment and rapacity +could be maintained, though but for one year and in one place, I was +sure that a practicable breach was made in the whole order of things, +and in every country. Religion, that held the materials of the fabric +together, was first systematically loosened. All other opinions, under +the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left +undefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt +cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish arms for defence. I knew, that, +attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action +by vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon authority alone. It +wanted some other support than the poise of its own gravity. Situations +formerly supported persons. It now became necessary that personal +qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was +found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, +to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in the +sanctuary of government something should be disclosed not only +venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full of +virtue and full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making it +appear to the world that a generous cause was to be asserted, one fit +for a generous people to engage in. From passive submission was it to +expect resolute defence? No! It must have warm advocates and passionate +defenders, which an heavy, discontented acquiescence never could +produce. What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated body +of authority to say, or to act as if it said, "I will put my trust, not +in my own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in +indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious +humors, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining +yourselves." + +I wished to warn the people against the greatest of all evils,--a blind +and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform. I was, +indeed, well aware that power rarely reforms itself. So it is, +undoubtedly, when all is quiet about it. But I was in hopes that +provident fear might prevent fruitless penitence. I trusted that danger +might produce at least circumspection. I flattered myself, in a moment +like this, that nothing would be added to make authority +top-heavy,--that the very moment of an earthquake would not be the time +chosen for adding a story to our houses. I hoped to see the surest of +all reforms, perhaps the only sure reform,--the ceasing to do ill. In +the mean time I wished to the people the wisdom of knowing how to +tolerate a condition which none of their efforts can render much more +than tolerable. It was a condition, however, in which everything was to +be found that could enable them to live to Nature, and, if so they +pleased, to live to virtue and to honor. + +I do not repent that I thought better of those to whom I wished well +than they will suffer me long to think that they deserved. Far from +repenting, I would to God that new faculties had been called up in me, +in favor not of this or that man, or this or that system, but of the +general, vital principle, that, whilst it was in its vigor, produced the +state of things transmitted to us from our fathers, but which, through +the joint operation of the abuses of authority and liberty, may perish +in our hands. I am not of opinion that the race of men, and the +commonwealths they create, like the bodies of individuals, grow effete +and languid and bloodless, and ossify, by the necessities of their own +conformation, and the fatal operation of longevity and time. These +analogies between bodies natural and politic, though they may sometimes +illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves. They are but +too often used, under the color of a specious philosophy, to find +apologies for the despair of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse +the want of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call +for them the more loudly. + +How often has public calamity been arrested on the very brink of ruin by +the seasonable energy of a single man! Have we no such man amongst us? I +am as sure as I am of my being, that one vigorous mind, without office, +without situation, without public functions of any kind, (at a time when +the want of such a thing is felt, as I am sure it is,) I say, one such +man, confiding in the aid of God, and full of just reliance in his own +fortitude, vigor, enterprise, and perseverance, would first draw to him +some few like himself, and then that multitudes, hardly thought to be in +existence, would appear and troop about him. + +If I saw this auspicious beginning, baffled and frustrated as I am, yet +on the very verge of a timely grave, abandoned abroad and desolate at +home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my helper, my +counsellor, and my guide, (you know in part what I have lost, and would +to God I could clear myself of all neglect and fault in that loss,) yet +thus, even thus, I would rake up the fire under all the ashes that +oppress it. I am no longer patient of the public eye; nor am I of force +to win my way and to justle and elbow in a crowd. But, even in solitude, +something may be done for society. The meditations of the closet have +infected senates with a subtle frenzy, and inflamed armies with the +brands of the Furies. The cure might come from the same source with the +distemper. I would add my part to those who would animate the people +(whose hearts are yet right) to new exertions in the old cause. + +Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should not a Maccabaeus and +his brethren arise to assert the honor of the ancient law and to defend +the temple of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as can inspire +any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of +ancient ages? It is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that, +when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts +out of the ordinary course they can alone be reestablished. Republican +spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature,--of the same +nature, but informed with another principle, and pointing to another +end. I would persuade a resistance both to the corruption and to the +reformation that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but much the +stronger, for combating both together. A victory over real corruptions +would enable us to baffle the spurious and pretended reformations. I +would not wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind of evil spirit +which evokes the powers of hell to rectify the disorders of the earth. +No! I would add my voice with better, and, I trust, more potent charms, +to draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from heaven, for the +correction of human vice, and the recalling of human error from the +devious ways into which it has been betrayed. I would wish to call the +impulses of individuals at once to the aid and to the control of +authority. By this, which I call the true republican spirit, paradoxical +as it may appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from the imbecility of +courts and the madness of the crowd. This republican spirit would not +suffer men in high place to bring ruin on their country and on +themselves. It would reform, not by destroying, but by saving, the +great, the rich, and the powerful. Such a republican spirit we perhaps +fondly conceive to have animated the distinguished heroes and patriots +of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and virtue. These they +would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not suffer +monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of dignity +or authority or freedom, to shake off those moral riders which reason +has appointed to govern every sort of rude power. These, in appearance +loading them by their weight, do by that pressure augment their +essential force. The momentum is increased by the extraneous weight. It +is true in moral as it is in mechanical science. It is true, not only in +the draught, but in the race. These riders of the great, in effect, hold +the reins which guide them in their course, and wear the spur that +stimulates them to the goals of honor and of safety. The great must +submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long +submit to the dominion of the great. _Dis te minorem quod geris, +imperas_. This is the feudal tenure which they cannot alter. + +Indeed, my dear Sir, things are in a bad state. I do not deny a good +share of diligence, a very great share of ability, and much public +virtue to those who direct our affairs. But they are incumbered, not +aided, by their very instruments, and by all the apparatus of the state. +I think that our ministry (though there are things against them which +neither you nor I can dissemble, and which grieve me to the heart) is by +far the most honest and by far the wisest system of administration in +Europe. Their fall would be no trivial calamity. + +Not meaning to depreciate the minority in Parliament, whose talents are +also great, and to whom I do not deny virtues, their system seems to me +to be fundamentally wrong. But whether wrong or right, they have not +enough of coherence among themselves, nor of estimation with the public, +nor of numbers. They cannot make up an administration. Nothing is more +visible. Many other things are against them, which I do not charge as +faults, but reckon among national misfortunes. Extraordinary things must +be done, or one of the parties cannot stand as a ministry, nor the other +even as an opposition. They cannot change their situations, nor can any +useful coalition be made between them. I do not see the mode of it nor +the way to it. This aspect of things I do not contemplate with pleasure. + +I well know that everything of the daring kind which I speak of is +critical: but the times are critical. New things in a new world! I see +no hopes in the common tracks. If men are not to be found who can be got +to feel within them some impulse, _quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio +tantum_, and which makes them impatient of the present,--if none can be +got to feel that private persons may sometimes assume that sort of +magistracy which does not depend on the nomination of kings or the +election of the people, but has an inherent and self-existent power +which both would recognize, I see nothing in the world to hope. + +If I saw such a group beginning to cluster, such as they are, they +should have (all that I can give) my prayers and my advice. People talk +of war or cry for peace: have they to the bottom considered the +questions either of war or peace, upon the scale of the existing world? +No, I fear they have not. + +Why should not you yourself be one of those to enter your name in such a +list as I speak of? You are young; you have great talents; you have a +clear head; you have a natural, fluent, and unforced elocution; your +ideas are just, your sentiments benevolent, open, and enlarged;--but +this is too big for your modesty. Oh! this modesty, in time and place, +is a charming virtue, and the grace of all other virtues. But it is +sometimes the worst enemy they have. Let him whose print I gave you the +other day be engraved in your memory! Had it pleased Providence to have +spared him for the trying situations that seem to be coming on, +notwithstanding that he was sometimes a little dispirited by the +disposition which we thought shown to depress him and set him aside, yet +he was always buoyed up again; and on one or two occasions he discovered +what might be expected from the vigor and elevation of his mind, from +his unconquerable fortitude, and from the extent of his resources for +every purpose of speculation and of action. Remember him, my friend, who +in the highest degree honored and respected you; and remember that great +parts are a great trust. Remember, too, that mistaken or misapplied +virtues, if they are not as pernicious as vice, frustrate at least their +own natural tendencies, and disappoint the purposes of the Great Giver. + +Adieu. My dreams are finished. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] Mr. Paine is a Norfolk man, from Thetford. + + + + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS + +ON + +SCARCITY. + +ORIGINALLY PRESENTED + +TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT, + +IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, + +1795. + + + + +THOUGHTS AND DETAILS + +ON + +SCARCITY. + + +Of all things, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is +the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most +disposed to it,--that is, in the time of scarcity; because there is +nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment +so weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded +popular prejudices. + +The great use of government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint +which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that +which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of +irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of +faction and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured +by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate +prejudices which in themselves are more than sufficiently strong. In +that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the +first thing that government owes to us, the people, is _information_; +the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the other to +regulate our tempers. + +To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. +It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. +The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of +government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in +this, or perhaps in anything else. It is not only so of the state and +statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich: they are +the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. +They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on +those who labor and are miscalled the poor. + +The laboring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in +their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast +multitude none can have much. That class of dependent pensioners called +the rich is so extremely small, that, if all their throats were cut, and +a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a +bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labor, and +who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. + +But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines +plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who +labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whether +they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust,--some with +more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But, on the whole, the duty +is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling +commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the +poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes +as when they burn mills and throw corn into the river to make bread +cheap. + +When I say that we of the people ought to be informed, inclusively I +say we ought not to be flattered: flattery is the reverse of +instruction. The _poor_ in that case would be rendered as improvident as +the rich, which would not be at all good for them. + +Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, +"the laboring _poor_." Let compassion be shown in action,--the more, the +better,--according to every man's ability; but let there be no +lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable +circumstances; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. +It arises from a total want of charity or a total want of thought. Want +of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, +labor, sobriety, frugality, and religion should be recommended to them; +all the rest is downright _fraud_. It is horrible to call them "the +_once happy_ laborer." + +Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the +laborious classes is increased or not, I cannot say. The seat of that +species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain +the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical +happiness is to want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much +and to enjoy much. + +If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere +towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our +estimate, then I assert, without the least hesitation, that the +condition of those who labor (in all descriptions of labor, and in all +gradations of labor, from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is, on +the whole, extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any standard +of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the +advantage of their augmented labor: yet whether that increase of labor +be on the whole a _good_ or an _evil_ is a consideration that would lead +us a great way, and is not for my present purpose. But as to the fact of +the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof, +whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of +contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour and +meat of the first quality is proof sufficient. + +I further assert, that, even under all the hardships of the last year, +the laboring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from +charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better +than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago,--or +even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four +years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were known +to do it before continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as +my own information and experience extend. + +It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal +price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that +price,--nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they +gave it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and fall with +the market of provisions. The rate of wages, in truth, has no _direct_ +relation to that price. Labor is a commodity like every other, and rises +or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things; +however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages +have been twice raised in my time; and they hear a full proportion, or +even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the +last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear a full proportion to the +result of their labor. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond +it, the stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon +them in a diminished demand, or, what indeed is the far lesser evil, an +aggravated price of all the provisions which are the result of their +manual toil. + +There is an implied contract, much stronger than any instrument or +article of agreement between the laborer in any occupation and his +employer,--that the labor, so far as that labor is concerned, shall be +sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital and a +compensation for his risk: in a word, that the labor shall produce an +advantage equal to the payment. Whatever is above that is a direct +_tax_; and if the amount of that tax be left to the will and pleasure of +another, it is an _arbitrary tax_. + +If I understand it rightly, the tax proposed on the farming interest of +this kingdom is to be levied at what is called the discretion of +justices of peace. + +The questions arising on this scheme of arbitrary taxation are these: +Whether it is better to leave all dealing, in which there is no force or +fraud, collusion or combination, entirely to the persons mutually +concerned in the matter contracted for,--or to put the contract into the +hands of those who can have none or a very remote interest in it, and +little or no knowledge of the subject. + +It might be imagined that there would be very little difficulty in +solving this question: for what man, of any degree of reflection, can +think that a want of interest in any subject, closely connected with a +want of skill in it, qualifies a person to intermeddle in any the least +affair,--much less in affairs that vitally concern the agriculture of +the kingdom, the first of all its concerns, and the foundation of all +its prosperity in every other matter by which that prosperity is +produced? + +The vulgar error on this subject arises from a total confusion in the +very idea of things widely different in themselves,--those of +convention, and those of judicature. When a contract is making, it is a +matter of discretion and of interest between the parties. In that +intercourse, and in what is to arise from it, the parties are the +masters. If they are not completely so, they are not free, and therefore +their contracts are void. + +But this freedom has no farther extent, when the contract is made: then +their discretionary powers expire, and a new order of things takes its +origin. Then, and not till then, and on a difference between the +parties, the office of the judge commences. He cannot dictate the +contract. It is his business to see that it be _enforced_,--provided +that it is not contrary to preexisting laws, or obtained by force or +fraud. If he is in any way a maker or regulator of the contract, in so +much he is disqualified from being a judge. But this sort of confused +distribution of administrative and judicial characters (of which we have +already as much as is sufficient, and a little more) is not the only +perplexity of notions and passions which trouble us in the present hour. + +What is doing supposes, or pretends, that the farmer and the laborer +have opposite interests,--that the farmer oppresses the laborer,--and +that a gentleman, called a justice of peace, is the protector of the +latter, and a control and restraint on the former; and this is a point +I wish to examine in a manner a good deal different from that in which +gentlemen proceed, who confide more in their abilities than is fit, and +suppose them capable of more than any natural abilities, fed with no +other than the provender furnished by their own private speculations, +can accomplish. Legislative acts attempting to regulate this part of +economy do, at least as much as any other, require the exactest detail +of circumstances, guided by the surest general principles that are +necessary to direct experiment and inquiry, in order again from those +details to elicit principles, firm and luminous general principles, to +direct a practical legislative proceeding. + +First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any other, of +necessary implication that contracting parties should originally have +had different interests. By accident it may be so, undoubtedly, at the +outset: but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and +compromise is founded on circumstances that suppose it the interest of +the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The principle of compromise +adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different. + +But in the case of the farmer and the laborer, their interests are +always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free +contracts can be onerous to either party. It is the interest of the +farmer that his work should be done with effect and celerity; and that +cannot be, unless the laborer is well fed, and otherwise found with such +necessaries of animal life, according to its habitudes, as may keep the +body in full force, and the mind gay and cheerful. For of all the +instruments of his trade, the labor of man (what the ancient writers +have called the _instrumentum vocale_) is that on which he is most to +rely for the repayment of his capital. The other two, the _semivocale_ +in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and +the _instrumentum mutum_, such as carts, ploughs, spades, and so forth, +though not all inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferior in +utility or in expense, and, without a given portion of the first, are +nothing at all. For, in all things whatever, the mind is the most +valuable and the most important; and in this scale the whole of +agriculture is in a natural and just order: the beast is as an informing +principle to the plough and cart; the laborer is as reason to the beast; +and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the laborer. +An attempt to break this chain of subordination in any part is equally +absurd; but the absurdity is the most mischievous, in practical +operation, where it is the most easy,--that is, where it is the most +subject to an erroneous judgment. + +It is plainly more the farmer's interest that his men should thrive than +that his horses should be well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or +than that his wagon and ploughs should be strong, in good repair, and +fit for service. + +On the other hand, if the farmer ceases to profit of the laborer, and +that his capital is not continually manured and fructified, it is +impossible that he should continue that abundant nutriment and clothing +and lodging proper for the protection of the instruments he employs. + +It is therefore the first and fundamental interest of the laborer, that +the farmer should have a full incoming profit on the product of his +labor. The proposition is self-evident; and nothing but the malignity, +perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind, and particularly the +envy they bear to each other's prosperity, could prevent their seeing +and acknowledging it, with thankfulness to the benign and wise Disposer +of all things, who obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing +their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own +individual success. + +But who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? +Certainly no authority on earth. It is a matter of convention, dictated +by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by their +reciprocal necessities.--But if the farmer is excessively +avaricious?--Why, so much the better: the more he desires to increase +his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition of those upon +whose labor his gains must principally depend. + +I shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may +be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and +the laborer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth, and at the +time of his health and vigor, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in +calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and +with the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future nourishers of the +community, but the present drains and blood-suckers of those who produce +them, what is to be done? When a man cannot live and maintain his family +by the natural hire of his labor, ought it not to be raised by +authority? + +On this head I must be allowed to submit what my opinions have ever +been, and somewhat at large. + +And, first, I premise that labor is, as I have already intimated, a +commodity, and, as such, an article of trade. If I am right in this +notion, then labor must be subject to all the laws and principles of +trade, and not to regulations foreign to them, and that may be totally +inconsistent with those principles and those laws. When any commodity is +carried to market, it is not the necessity of the vendor, but the +necessity of the purchaser, that raises the price. The extreme want of +the seller has rather (by the nature of things with which we shall in +vain contend) the direct contrary operation. If the goods at market are +beyond the demand, they fall in their value; if below it, they rise. The +impossibility of the subsistence of a man who carries his labor to a +market is totally beside the question, in this way of viewing it. The +only question is, What is it worth to the buyer? + +But if authority comes in and forces the buyer to a price, what is this +in the case (say) of a farmer who buys the labor of ten or twelve +laboring men, and three or four handicrafts,--what is it but to make an +arbitrary division of his property among them? + +The whole of his gains (I say it with the most certain conviction) never +do amount anything like in value to what he pays to his laborers and +artificers; so that a very small advance upon what _one_ man pays to +_many_ may absorb the whole of what he possesses, and amount to an +actual partition of all his substance among them. A perfect equality +will, indeed, be produced,--that is to say, equal want, equal +wretchedness, equal beggary, and, on the part of the partitioners, a +woful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all +compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above; they never raise +what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level +of what was originally the lowest. + +If a commodity is raised by authority above what it will yield with a +profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. If a +second blundering interposition be used to correct the blunder of the +first and an attempt is made to force the purchase of the commodity, (of +labor, for instance,) the one of these two things must happen: either +that the forced buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the +labor in that proportion is raised. Then the wheel turns round, and the +evil complained of falls with aggravated weight on the complainant. The +price of corn, which is the result of the expense of all the operations +of husbandry taken together, and for some time continued, will rise on +the laborer, considered as a consumer. The very best will be, that he +remains where he was. But if the price of the corn should not compensate +the price of labor, what is far more to be feared, the most serious +evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to be apprehended. + +Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse +discrimination, a want of such classification and distribution as the +subject admits of. Increase the rate of wages to the laborer, say the +regulators,--as if labor was but one thing, and of one value. But this +very broad, generic term, _labor_, admits, at least, of two or three +specific descriptions: and these will suffice, at least, to let +gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution in +their coercive guidance of those whose existence depends upon the +observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly +they resort to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged part of +economy. + +The laborers in husbandry may be divided,--First, Into those who are +able to perform the full work of a man,--that is, what can be done by a +person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no husbandry work +(mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all +persons within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack +and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good +deal of difference between the value of one man's labor and that of +another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I am +quite sure, from my best observation, that any given five men will, in +their total, afford a proportion of labor equal to any other five within +the periods of life I have stated: that is, that among such five men +there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, +one bad, and the other three middling, and approximating to the first +and the last. So that, in so small a platoon as that of even five, you +will find the full complement of all that five men _can_ earn. Taking +five and five throughout the kingdom, they are equal: therefore an error +with regard to the equalization of their wages by those who employ five, +as farmers do at the very least, cannot be considerable. + +Secondly, Those who are able to work, but not the complete task of a +day-laborer. This class is infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough +fall into principal divisions. _Men_, from the decline, which after +fifty becomes every year more sensible, to the period of debility and +decrepitude, and the maladies that precede a final dissolution. _Women_, +whose employment on husbandry is but occasional, and who differ more in +effective labor one from another than men do, on account of gestation, +nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they +have in common with men in advancing, in stationary, and in declining +life. _Children_, who proceed on the reverse order, growing from less to +greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion of nutriment to +labor than is found in the second of those subdivisions: as is visible +to those who will give themselves the trouble of examining into the +interior economy of a poor-house. + +This inferior classification is introduced to show that laws prescribing +or magistrates exercising a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a +blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions +between earning and salary, on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: +whereas interest, habit, and the tacit convention that arise from a +thousand nameless circumstances produce a _tact_ that regulates without +difficulty what laws and magistrates cannot regulate at all. The first +class of labor wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. The +second and third are not capable of any equalization. + +But what if the rate of hire to the laborer comes far short of his +necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to +threaten actual famine? Is the poor laborer to be abandoned to the +flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the +sword of law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very +avarice of farmers themselves has concurred with the errors of +government to bring famine on the land? + +In that case, my opinion is this: Whenever it happens that a man can +claim nothing according to the rules of commerce and the principles of +justice, he passes out of that department, and comes within the +jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing at +all to do; his interference is a violation of the property which it is +his office to protect. Without all doubt, charity to the poor is a +direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next in order after the +payment of debts, full as strong, and by Nature made infinitely more +delightful to us Pufendorf, and other casuists, do not, I think, +denominate it quite properly, when they call it a duty of imperfect +obligation. But the manner, mode, time, choice of objects, and +proportion are left to private discretion; and perhaps for that very +reason it is performed with the greater satisfaction, because the +discharge of it has more the appearance of freedom,--recommending us +besides very specially to the Divine favor, as the exercise of a virtue +most suitable to a being sensible of its own infirmity. + +The cry of the people in cities and towns, though unfortunately (from a +fear of their multitude and combination) the most regarded, ought, in +_fact_, to be the _least_ attended to, upon this subject: for citizens +are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by which they are to be +fed, and they contribute little or nothing, except in an infinitely +circuitous manner, to their own maintenance. They are truly _fruges +consumere nati_. They are to be heard with great respect and attention +upon matters within their province,--that is, on trades and +manufactures; but on anything that relates to agriculture they are to be +listened to with the same _reverence_ which we pay to the dogmas of +other ignorant and presumptuous men. + +If any one were to tell them that they were to give in an account of all +the stock in their shops,--that attempts would be made to limit their +profits, or raise the price of the laboring manufacturers upon them, or +recommend to government, out of a capital from the public revenues, to +set up a shop of the same commodities, in order to rival them, and keep, +them to reasonable dealing,--they would very soon see the impudence, +injustice, and oppression of such a course. They would not be mistaken: +but they are of opinion that agriculture is to be subject to other laws, +and to be governed by other principles. + +A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be fallen into than that the +trades of agriculture and grazing can be conducted upon any other than +the common principles of commerce: namely, that the producer should be +permitted, and even expected, to look to all possible profit which +without fraud or violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to the +best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring forward his commodities +at his pleasure; to account to no one for his stock or for his gain. On +any other terms he is the slave of the consumer: and that he should be +so is of no benefit to the consumer. No slave was ever so beneficial to +the master as a freeman that deals with him on an equal footing by +convention, formed on the rules and principles of contending interests +and compromised advantages. The consumer, if he were suffered, would in +the end always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice. The landed +gentleman is never to forget that the farmer is his representative. + +It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the farmer. The farmer's +capital (except in a few persons and in a very few places) is far more +feeble than commonly is imagined. The trade is a very poor trade; it is +subject to great risks and losses. The capital, such as it is, is turned +but once in the year; in some branches it requires three years before +the money is paid: I believe never less than three in the turnip and +grass-land course, which is the prevalent course on the more or less +fertile sandy and gravelly loams,--and these compose the soil in the +south and southeast of England, the best adapted, and perhaps the only +ones that are adapted, to the turnip husbandry. + +It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer, counting the value of +his quick and dead stock, the interest of the money he turns, together +with his own wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever does make twelve or +fifteen per centum by the year on his capital. I speak of the +prosperous. In most of the parts of England which have fallen within my +observation I have rarely known a farmer, who to his own trade has not +added some other employment or traffic, that, after a course of the most +unremitting parsimony and labor, (such for the greater part is theirs,) +and persevering in his business for a long course of years, died worth +more than paid his debts, leaving his posterity to continue in nearly +the same equal conflict between industry and want, in which the last +predecessor, and a long line of predecessors before him, lived and died. + +Observe that I speak of the generality of farmers, who have not more +than from one hundred and fifty to three or four hundred acres. There +are few in this part of the country within the former or much beyond the +latter extent. Unquestionably in other places there are much larger. +But I am convinced, whatever part of England be the theatre of his +operations, a farmer who cultivates twelve hundred acres, which I +consider as a large farm, though I know there are larger, cannot proceed +with any degree of safety and effect with a smaller capital than ten +thousand pounds, and that he cannot, in the ordinary course of culture, +make more upon that great capital of ten thousand pounds than twelve +hundred a year. + +As to the weaker capitals, an easy judgment may be formed by what very +small errors they may be farther attenuated, enervated, rendered +unproductive, and perhaps totally destroyed. + +This constant precariousness and ultimate moderate limits of a farmer's +fortune, on the strongest capital, I press, not only on account of the +hazardous speculations of the times, but because the excellent and most +useful works of my friend, Mr. Arthur Young, tend to propagate that +error (such I am very certain it is) of the largeness of a farmer's +profits. It is not that his account of the produce does often greatly +exceed, but he by no means makes the proper allowance for accidents and +losses. I might enter into a convincing detail, if other more +troublesome and more necessary details were not before me. + +This proposed discretionary tax on labor militates with the +recommendations of the Board of Agriculture: they recommend a general +use of the drill culture. I agree with the Board, that, where the soil +is not excessively heavy, or incumbered with large loose stones, (which, +however, is the case with much otherwise good land,) that course is the +best and most productive,--provided that the most accurate eye, the most +vigilant superintendence, the most prompt activity, which has no such +day as to-morrow in its calendar, the most steady foresight and +predisposing order to have everybody and everything ready in its place, +and prepared to take advantage of the fortunate, fugitive moment, in +this coquetting climate of ours,--provided, I say, all these combine to +speed the plough, I admit its superiority over the old and general +methods. But under procrastinating, improvident, ordinary husbandmen, +who may neglect or let slip the few opportunities of sweetening and +purifying their ground with perpetually renovated toil and undissipated +attention, nothing, when tried to any extent, can be worse or more +dangerous: the farm may be ruined, instead of having the soil enriched +and sweetened by it. + +But the excellence of the method on a proper soil, and conducted by +husbandmen, of whom there are few, being readily granted, how, and on +what conditions, is this culture obtained? Why, by a very great increase +of labor: by an augmentation of the third part, at least, of the +hand-labor, to say nothing of the horses and machinery employed in +ordinary tillage. Now every man must be sensible how little becoming the +gravity of legislature it is to encourage a board which recommends to +us, and upon very weighty reasons unquestionably, an enlargement of the +capital we employ in the operations of the hand, and then to pass an act +which taxes that manual labor, already at a very high rate,--thus +compelling us to diminish the quantity of labor which in the vulgar +course we actually employ. + +What is true of the farmer is equally true of the middle-man,--whether +the middle-man acts as factor, jobber, salesman, or speculator, in the +markets of grain. These traders are to be left to their free course; +and the more they make, and the richer they are, and the more largely +they deal, the better both for the farmer and consumer, between whom +they form a natural and most useful link of connection,--though by the +machinations of the old evil counsellor, _Envy_, they are hated and +maligned by both parties. + +I hear that middle-men are accused of monopoly. Without question, the +monopoly of authority is, in every instance and in every degree, an +evil; but the monopoly of capital is the contrary. It is a great +benefit, and a benefit particularly to the poor. A tradesman who has but +a hundred pound capital, which (say) he can turn but once a year, cannot +live upon a _profit_ of ten per cent, because he cannot live upon ten +pounds a year; but a man of ten thousand pounds capital can live and +thrive upon five per cent profit in the year, because he has five +hundred pounds a year. The same proportion holds in turning it twice or +thrice. These principles are plain and simple; and it is not our +ignorance, so much as the levity, the envy, and the malignity of our +nature, that hinders us from perceiving and yielding to them: but we are +not to suffer our vices to usurp the place of our judgment. + +The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market +settles, and alone can settle, that price. Market is the meeting and +conference of the _consumer_ and _producer_, when they mutually discover +each other's wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection +what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, +the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is +settled. They who wish the destruction of that balance, and would fain +by arbitrary regulation decree that defective production should not be +compensated by increased price, directly lay their _axe_ to the root of +production itself. They may, even in one year of such false policy, do +mischiefs incalculable; because the trade of a farmer is, as I have +before explained, one of the most precarious in its advantages, the most +liable to losses, and the least profitable of any that is carried on. It +requires ten times more of labor, of vigilance, of attention, of skill, +and, let me add, of good fortune also, to carry on the business of a +farmer with success, than what belongs to any other trade. + +Seeing things in this light, I am far from presuming to censure the late +circular instruction of Council to lord-lieutenants, but I confess I do +not clearly discern its object. I am greatly afraid that the inquiry +will raise some alarm, as a measure leading to the French system of +putting corn into requisition. For that was preceded by an inquisition +somewhat similar in its principle, though, according to their mode, +their principles are full of that violence which _here_ is not much to +be feared. It goes on a principle directly opposite to mine: it presumes +that the market is no fair _test_ of plenty or scarcity. It raises a +suspicion, which may affect the tranquillity of the public mind, "that +the farmer keeps back, and takes unfair advantages by delay"; on the +part of the dealer, it gives rise obviously to a thousand nefarious +speculations. + +In case the return should on the whole prove favorable, is it meant to +ground a measure for encouraging exportation and checking the import of +corn? If it is not, what end can it answer? And I believe it is not. + +This opinion may be fortified by a report gone abroad, that intentions +are entertained of erecting public granaries, and that this inquiry is +to give government an advantage in its purchases. + +I hear that such a measure has been proposed, and is under deliberation: +that is, for government to set up a granary in every market-town, at the +expense of the state, in order to extinguish the dealer, and to subject +the farmer to the consumer, by securing corn to the latter at a certain +and steady price. + +If such a scheme is adopted, I should not like to answer for the safety +of the granary, of the agents, or of the town itself in which the +granary was erected: the first storm of popular frenzy would fall upon +that granary. + +So far in a political light. + +In an economical light, I must observe that the construction of such +granaries throughout the kingdom would be at an expense beyond all +calculation. The keeping them up would be at a great charge. The +management and attendance would require an army of agents, +store-keepers, clerks, and servants. The capital to be employed in the +purchase of grain would be enormous. The waste, decay, and corruption +would be a dreadful drawback on the whole dealing; and the +dissatisfaction of the people, at having decayed, tainted, or corrupted +corn sold to them, as must be the case, would be serious. + +This climate (whatever others may be) is not favorable to granaries, +where wheat is to be kept for any time. The best, and indeed the only +good granary, is the rick-yard of the farmer, where the corn is +preserved in its own straw, sweet, clean, wholesome, free from vermin +and from insects, and comparatively at a trifle of expense. This, and +the barn, enjoying many of the same advantages, have been the sole +granaries of England from the foundation of its agriculture to this day. +All this is done at the expense of the undertaker, and at his sole risk. +He contributes to government, he receives nothing from it but +protection, and to this he has a _claim_. + +The moment that government appears at market, all the principles of +market will be subverted. I don't know whether the farmer will suffer by +it, as long as there is a tolerable market of competition; but I am +sure, that, in the first place, the trading government will speedily +become a bankrupt, and the consumer in the end will suffer. If +government makes all its purchases at once, it will instantly raise the +market upon itself. If it makes them by degrees, it must follow the +course of the market. If it follows the course of the market, it will +produce no effect, and the consumer may as well buy as he wants; +therefore all the expense is incurred gratis. + +But if the object of this scheme should be, what I suspect it is, to +destroy the dealer, commonly called the middle-man, and by incurring a +voluntary loss to carry the baker to deal with government, I am to tell +them that they must set up another trade, that of a miller or a +meal-man, attended with a new train of expenses and risks. If in both +these trades they should succeed, so as to exclude those who trade on +natural and private capitals, then they will have a monopoly in their +hands, which, under the appearance of a monopoly of capital, will, in +reality, be a monopoly of authority, and will ruin whatever it touches. +The agriculture of the kingdom cannot stand before it. + +A little place like Geneva, of not more than from twenty-five to thirty +thousand inhabitants,--which has no territory, or next to none,--which +depends for its existence on the good-will of three neighboring powers, +and is of course continually in the state of something like a _siege_, +or in the speculation of it,--might find some resource in state +granaries, and some revenue from the monopoly of what was sold to the +keepers of public-houses. This is a policy for a state too small for +agriculture. It is not (for instance) fit for so great a country as the +Pope possesses,--where, however, it is adopted and pursued in a greater +extent, and with more strictness. Certain of the Pope's territories, +from whence the city of Rome is supplied, being obliged to furnish Rome +and the granaries of his Holiness with corn at a certain price, that +part of the Papal territories is utterly ruined. That ruin may be traced +with certainty to this sole cause; and it appears indubitably by a +comparison of their state and condition with that of the other part of +the ecclesiastical dominions, not subjected to the same regulations, +which are in circumstances highly flourishing. + +The reformation of this evil system is in a manner impracticable. For, +first, it does keep bread and all other provisions equally subject to +the chamber of supply, at a pretty reasonable and regular price, in the +city of Rome. This preserves quiet among the numerous poor, idle, and +naturally mutinous people of a very great capital. But the quiet of the +town is purchased by the ruin of the country and the ultimate +wretchedness of both. The next cause which renders this evil incurable +is the jobs which have grown out of it, and which, in spite of all +precautions, would grow out of such things even under governments far +more potent than the feeble authority of the Pope. + +This example of Rome, which has been derived from the most ancient +times, and the most flourishing period of the Roman Empire, (but not of +the Roman agriculture,) may serve as a great caution to all governments +not to attempt to feed the people out of the hands of the magistrates. +If once they are habituated to it, though but for one half-year, they +will never be satisfied to have it otherwise. And having looked to +government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite +the hand that fed them. To avoid that _evil_, government will redouble +the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable. + +I beseech the government (which I take in the largest sense of the word, +comprehending the two Houses of Parliament) seriously to consider that +years of scarcity or plenty do not come alternately or at short +intervals, but in pretty long cycles and irregularly, and consequently +that we cannot assure ourselves, if we take a wrong measure, from the +temporary necessities of one season, but that the next, and probably +more, will drive us to the continuance of it; so that, in my opinion, +there is no way of preventing this evil, which goes to the destruction +of all our agriculture, and of that part of our internal commerce which +touches our agriculture the most nearly, as well as the safety and very +being of government, but manfully to resist the very first idea, +speculative or practical, that it is within the competence of +government, taken as government, or even of the rich, as rich, to supply +to the poor those necessaries which it has pleased the Divine +Providence for a while to withhold from them. We, the people, ought to +be made sensible that it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which +are the laws of Nature, and consequently the laws of God, that we are to +place our hope of softening the Divine displeasure to remove any +calamity under which we suffer or which hangs over us. + +So far as to the principles of general policy. + +As to the state of things which is urged as a reason to deviate from +them, these are the circumstances of the harvest of 1794 and 1795. With +regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to the noblest grain, wheat, +it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively,--and in +quality, for the seven-and-twenty years during which I have been a +farmer, I never remember wheat to have been so good. The world were, +however, deceived in their speculations upon it,--the farmer as well as +the dealer. Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond anything I can +remember: for at one time of the year I sold my wheat at 14_l._ a load, +(I sold off all I had, as I thought this was a reasonable price,) when +at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell, I might have +got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain. I sold all that I had, as +I said, at a comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price, +compared with what I thought the general produce of the harvest; but +when I came to consider what my own _total_ was, I found that the +quantity had not answered my expectation. It must be remembered that +this year of produce, (the year 1794,) short, but excellent, followed a +year which was not extraordinary in production, nor of a superior +quality, and left but little in store. At first, this was not felt, +because the harvest came in unusually early,--earlier than common by a +full month. + +The winter, at the end of 1794 and beginning of 1795, was more than +usually unfavorable both to corn and grass, owing to the sudden +relaxation of very rigorous frosts, followed by rains, which were again +rapidly succeeded by frosts of still greater rigor than the first. + +Much wheat was utterly destroyed. The clover-grass suffered in many +places. What I never observed before, the rye-grass, or coarse bent, +suffered more than the clover. Even the meadow-grass in some places was +killed to the very roots. In the spring appearances were better than we +expected. All the early sown grain recovered itself, and came up with +great vigor; but that which was late sown was feeble, and did not +promise to resist any blights in the spring, which, however, with all +its unpleasant vicissitudes, passed off very well; and nothing looked +better than the wheat at the time of blooming;--but at that most +critical time of all, a cold, dry east wind, attended with very sharp +frosts, longer and stronger than I recollect at that time of year, +destroyed the flowers, and withered up, in an astonishing manner, the +whole side of the ear next to the wind. At that time I brought to town +some of the ears, for the purpose of showing to my friends the operation +of those unnatural frosts, and according to their extent I predicted a +great scarcity. But such is the pleasure of agreeable prospects, that my +opinion was little regarded. + +On threshing, I found things as I expected,--the ears not filled, some +of the capsules quite empty, and several others containing only +withered, hungry grain, inferior to the appearance of rye. My best ears +and grain were not fine; never had I grain of so low a quality: yet I +sold one load for 21_l._ At the same time I bought my seed wheat (it was +excellent) at 23_l._ Since then the price has risen, and I have sold +about two load of the same sort at 23_l._ Such was the state of the +market when I left home last Monday. Little remains in my barn. I hope +some in the rick may be better, since it was earlier sown, as well as I +can recollect. Some of my neighbors have better, some quite as bad, or +even worse. I suspect it will be found, that, wherever the blighting +wind and those frosts at blooming-time have prevailed, the produce of +the wheat crop will turn out very indifferent. Those parts which have +escaped will, I can hardly doubt, have a reasonable produce. + +As to the other grains, it is to be observed, as the wheat ripened very +late, (on account, I conceive, of the blights,) the barley got the start +of it, and was ripe first. The crop was with me, and wherever my inquiry +could reach, excellent; in some places far superior to mine. + +The clover, which came up with the barley, was the finest I remember to +have seen. + +The turnips of this year are generally good. + +The clover sown last year, where not totally destroyed, gave two good +crops, or one crop and a plentiful feed; and, bating the loss of the +rye-grass, I do not remember a better produce. + +The meadow-grass yielded but a middling crop, and neither of the sown or +natural grass was there in any farmer's possession any remainder from +the year worth taking into account. In most places there was none at +all. + +Oats with me were not in a quantity more considerable than in commonly +good seasons; but I have never known them heavier than they were in +other places. The oat was not only an heavy, but an uncommonly abundant +crop. + +My ground under pease did not exceed an acre or thereabouts, but the +crop was great indeed. I believe it is throughout the country exuberant. +It is, however, to be remarked, as generally of all the grains, so +particularly of the pease, that there was not the smallest quantity in +reserve. + +The demand of the year must depend solely on its own produce; and the +price of the spring corn is not to be expected to fall very soon, or at +any time very low. + +Uxbridge is a great corn market. As I came through that town, I found +that at the last market-day barley was at forty shillings a quarter. +Oats there were literally none; and the inn-keeper was obliged to send +for them to London. I forgot to ask about pease. Potatoes were 5_s_. the +bushel. + +In the debate on this subject in the House, I am told that a leading +member of great ability, _little conversant in these matters_, observed, +that the general uniform dearness of butcher's meat, butter, and cheese +could not be owing to a defective produce of wheat; and on this ground +insinuated a suspicion of some unfair practice on the subject, that +called for inquiry. + +Unquestionably, the mere deficiency of wheat could not cause the +dearness of the other articles, which extends not only to the provisions +he mentioned, but to every other without exception. + +The cause is, indeed, so very plain and obvious that the wonder is the +other way. When a properly directed inquiry is made, the gentlemen who +are amazed at the price of these commodities will find, that, when hay +is at six pound a load, as they must know it is, herbage, and for more +than one year, must be scanty; and they will conclude, that, if grass be +scarce, beef, veal, mutton, butter, milk, and cheese _must_ be dear. + +But to take up the matter somewhat more in detail.--If the wheat harvest +in 1794, excellent in quality, was defective in quantity, the barley +harvest was in quality ordinary enough, and in quantity deficient. This +was soon felt in the price of malt. + +Another article of produce (beans) was not at all plentiful. The crop of +pease was wholly destroyed, so that several farmers pretty early gave up +all hopes on that head, and cut the green haulm as fodder for the +cattle, then perishing for want of food in that dry and burning summer. +I myself came off better than most: I had about the fourth of a crop of +pease. + +It will be recollected, that, in a manner, all the bacon and pork +consumed in this country (the far largest consumption of meat out of +towns) is, when growing, fed on grass, and on whey or skimmed milk,--and +when fatting, partly on the latter. This is the case in the dairy +countries, all of them great breeders and feeders of swine; but for the +much greater part, and in all the corn countries, they are fattened on +beans, barley-meal, and pease. When the food of the animal is scarce, +his flesh must be dear. This, one would suppose, would require no great +penetration to discover. + +This failure of so very large a supply of flesh in one species naturally +throws the whole demand of the consumer on the diminished supply of all +kinds of flesh, and, indeed, on all the matters of human sustenance. +Nor, in my opinion, are we to expect a greater cheapness in that article +for this year, even though corn should grow cheaper, as it is to be +hoped it will. The store swine, from the failure of subsistence last +year, are now at an extravagant price. Pigs, at our fairs, have sold +lately for fifty shillings, which two years ago would not have brought +more than twenty. + +As to sheep, none, I thought, were strangers to the general failure of +the article of turnips last year: the early having been burned, as they +came up, by the great drought and heat; the late, and those of the early +which had escaped, were destroyed by the chilling frosts of the winter +and the wet and severe weather of the spring. In many places a full +fourth of the sheep or the lambs were lost; what remained of the lambs +were poor and ill fed, the ewes having had no milk. The calves came +late, and they were generally an article the want of which was as much +to be dreaded as any other. So that article of food, formerly so +abundant in the early part of the summer, particularly in London, and +which in a great part supplied the place of mutton for near two months, +did little less than totally fail. + +All the productions of the earth link in with each other. All the +sources of plenty, in all and every article, were dried or frozen up. +The scarcity was not, as gentlemen seem to suppose, in wheat only. + +Another cause, and that not of inconsiderable operation, tended to +produce a scarcity in flesh provision. It is one that on many accounts +cannot be too much regretted, and the rather, as it was the sole _cause_ +of a scarcity in that article which arose from the proceedings of men +themselves: I mean the stop put to the distillery. + +The hogs (and that would be sufficient) which were fed with the waste +wash of that produce did not demand the fourth part of the corn used by +farmers in fattening them. The spirit was nearly so much clear gain to +the nation. It is an odd way of making flesh cheap, to stop or check the +distillery. + +The distillery in itself produces an immense article of trade almost all +over the world,--to Africa, to North America, and to various parts of +Europe. It is of great use, next to food itself, to our fisheries and to +our whole navigation. A great part of the distillery was carried on by +damaged corn, unfit for bread, and by barley and malt of the lowest +quality. These things could not be more unexceptionably employed. The +domestic consumption of spirits produced, without complaints, a very +great revenue, applicable, if we pleased, in bounties, to the bringing +corn from other places, far beyond the value of that consumed in making +it, or to the encouragement of its increased production at home. + +As to what is said, in a physical and moral view, against the home +consumption of spirits, experience has long since taught me very little +to respect the declamations on that subject. Whether the thunder of the +laws or the thunder of eloquence "is hurled on _gin_" always I am +thunder-proof. The alembic, in my mind, has furnished to the world a far +greater benefit and blessing than if the _opus maximum_ had been really +found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we could turn everything into gold. + +Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abuse in the excess of spirits; and +at one time I am ready to believe the abuse was great. When spirits are +cheap, the business of drunkenness is achieved with little time or +labor; but that evil I consider to be wholly done away. Observation for +the last forty years, and very particularly for the last thirty, has +furnished me with ten instances of drunkenness from other causes for one +from this. Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove +distempers, much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away +in their beginnings. It is not nutritive in _any great_ degree. But if +not food, it greatly alleviates the want of it. It invigorates the +stomach for the digestion of poor, meagre diet, not easily alliable to +the human constitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to +many occasions, (as among seamen and fishermen, for instance,) will by +no means do the business. Let me add, what wits inspired with champagne +and claret will turn into ridicule,--it is a medicine for the mind. +Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men +have at all times and in all countries called in some physical aid to +their moral consolations,--wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. + +I consider, therefore, the stopping of the distillery, economically, +financially, commercially, medicinally, and in some degree morally too, +as a measure rather well meant than well considered. It is too precious +a sacrifice to prejudice. + +Gentlemen well know whether there be a scarcity of partridges, and +whether that be an effect of hoarding and combination. All the tame race +of birds live and die as the wild do. + +As to the lesser articles, they are like the greater. They have followed +the fortune of the season. Why are fowls dear? Was not this the farmer's +or jobber's fault? I sold from my yard to a jobber six young and lean +fowls for four-and-twenty shillings,--fowls for which two years ago the +same man would not have given a shilling apiece. He sold them afterwards +at Uxbridge, and they were taken to London to receive the last hand. + +As to the operation of the war in causing the scarcity of provisions, I +understand that Mr. Pitt has given a particular answer to it; but I do +not think it worth powder and shot. + +I do not wonder the papers are so full of this sort of matter, but I am +a little surprised it should be mentioned in Parliament. Like all great +state questions, peace and war may be discussed, and different opinions +fairly formed, on political grounds; but on a question of the present +price of provisions, when peace with the Regicides is always uppermost, +I can only say that great is the love of it. + +After all, have we not reason to be thankful to the Giver of all Good? +In our history, and when "the laborer of England is said to have been +once happy," we find constantly, after certain intervals, a period of +real famine, by which a melancholy havoc was made among the human race. +The price of provisions fluctuated dreadfully, demonstrating a +deficiency very different from the worst failures of the present moment. +Never, since I have known England, have I known more than a comparative +scarcity. The price of wheat, taking a number of years together, has had +no very considerable fluctuation; nor has it risen exceedingly until +within this twelvemonth. Even now, I do not know of one man, woman, or +child that has perished from famine: fewer, if any, I believe, than in +years of plenty, when such a thing may happen by accident. This is owing +to a care and superintendence of the poor, far greater than any I +remember. + +The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together, +against those wicked writers of the newspapers who would inflame the +poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and protectors. Not only +very few (I have observed that I know of none, though I live in a place +as poor as most) have actually died of want, but we have seen no traces +of those dreadful exterminating epidemics which, in consequence of +scanty and unwholesome food, in former times not unfrequently wasted +whole nations. Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we +shall do tolerably well. + +It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often +engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession,--What the state +ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it +ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual +discretion. Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that +will not admit of exceptions,--many permanent, some occasional. But the +clearest line of distinction which I could draw, whilst I had my chalk +to draw any line, was this: that the state ought to confine itself to +what regards the state or the creatures of the state: namely, the +exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its +military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their +existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is _truly and +properly_ public,--to the public peace, to the public safety, to the +public order, to the public prosperity. In its preventive police it +ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few, +unfrequent, and strong, than many, and frequent, and, of course, as +they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble. +Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to +wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their +duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains +will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they descend from the +state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a +private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. They _cannot_ do +the lower duty; and in proportion as they try it, they will certainly +fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of +things,--what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To +these great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law. + +Our legislature has fallen into this fault, as well as other +governments: all have fallen into it more or less. The once mighty state +which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and whose +ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this +error. I can never quote France without a foreboding sigh,--[Greek: +ESSETAI HMAP] Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the +flames of the great rival of his country. That state has fallen by the +hands of the parricides of their country, called the Revolutionists and +Constitutionalists of France: a species of traitors, of whose fury and +atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the frenzy and depravation +of mankind had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never +think or speak without a mixed sensation of disgust, of horror, and of +detestation, not easy to be expressed. These nefarious monsters +destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was +in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed +and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world. But +though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished +them with means for its destruction. My dear departed friend, whose loss +is even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the +leading vice of the French monarchy (which he had well studied) was in +good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of governing too +much. The hand of authority was seen in everything and in every place. +All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic +affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in +this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious +power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible +imbecility. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I +thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior +power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much +use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But +as everything is good or bad as it is related or combined, government +being relaxed above as it was relaxed below, and the brains of the +people growing more and more addle with every sort of visionary +speculation, the shiftings of the scene in the provincial theatres +became only preparatives to a revolution in the kingdom, and the popular +actings there only the rehearsals of the terrible drama of the Republic. + +Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused +powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any +other direct cause than its own weakness. My opinion is against an +overdoing of any sort of administration, and more especially against +this most momentous of all meddling on the part of authority,--the +meddling with the subsistence of the people. + + + + +A + +LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD + +ON + +THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, + +BY + +THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE, + +EARLY IN THE PRESENT SESSION OF PARLIAMENT. + +1796. + + + + +LETTER. + + +My lord,--I could hardly flatter myself with the hope that so very early +in the season I should have to acknowledge obligations to the Duke of +Bedford and to the Earl of Lauderdale. These noble persons have lost no +time in conferring upon me that sort of honor which it is alone within +their competence, and which it is certainly most congenial to their +nature and their manners, to bestow. + +To be ill spoken of, in whatever language they speak, by the zealots of +the new sect in philosophy and politics, of which these noble persons +think so charitably, and of which others think so justly, to me is no +matter of uneasiness or surprise. To have incurred the displeasure of +the Duke of Orleans or the Duke of Bedford, to fall under the censure of +Citizen Brissot or of his friend the Earl of Lauderdale, I ought to +consider as proofs, not the least satisfactory, that I have produced +some part of the effect I proposed by my endeavors. I have labored hard +to earn what the noble Lords are generous enough to pay. Personal +offence I have given them none. The part they take against me is from +zeal to the cause. It is well,--it is perfectly well. I have to do +homage to their justice. I have to thank the Bedfords and the +Lauderdales for having so faithfully and so fully acquitted towards me +whatever arrear of debt was left undischarged by the Priestleys and the +Paines. + +Some, perhaps, may think them executors in their own wrong: I at least +have nothing to complain of. They have gone beyond the demands of +justice. They have been (a little, perhaps, beyond their intention) +favorable to me. They have been the means of bringing out by their +invectives the handsome things which Lord Grenville has had the goodness +and condescension to say in my behalf. Retired as I am from the world, +and from all its affairs and all its pleasures, I confess it does kindle +in my nearly extinguished feelings a very vivid satisfaction to be so +attacked and so commended. It is soothing to my wounded mind to be +commended by an able, vigorous, and well-informed statesman, and at the +very moment when he stands forth, with a manliness and resolution worthy +of himself and of his cause, for the preservation of the person and +government of our sovereign, and therein for the security of the laws, +the liberties, the morals, and the lives of his people. To be in any +fair way connected with such things is indeed a distinction. No +philosophy can make me above it: no melancholy can depress me so low as +to make me wholly insensible to such an honor. + +Why will they not let me remain in obscurity and inaction? Are they +apprehensive, that, if an atom of me remains, the sect has something to +fear? Must I be annihilated, lest, like old John Zisca's, my skin might +be made into a drum, to animate Europe to eternal battle against a +tyranny that threatens to overwhelm all Europe and all the human race? + +My Lord, it is a subject of awful meditation. Before this of France, +the annals of all time have not furnished an instance of a _complete_ +revolution. That revolution seems to have extended even to the +constitution of the mind of man. It has this of wonderful in it, that it +resembles what Lord Verulam says of the operations of Nature: It was +perfect, not only in its elements and principles, but in all its members +and its organs, from the very beginning. The moral scheme of France +furnishes the only pattern ever known which they who admire will +_instantly_ resemble. It is, indeed, an inexhaustible repertory of one +kind of examples. In my wretched condition, though hardly to be classed +with the living, I am not safe from them. They have tigers to fall upon +animated strength; they have hyenas to prey upon carcasses. The national +menagerie is collected by the first physiologists of the time; and it is +defective in no description of savage nature. They pursue even such as +me into the obscurest retreats, and haul them before their revolutionary +tribunals. Neither sex, nor age, nor the sanctuary of the tomb, is +sacred to them. They have so determined a hatred to all privileged +orders, that they deny even to the departed the sad immunities of the +grave. They are not wholly without an object. Their turpitude purveys to +their malice; and they unplumb the dead for bullets to assassinate the +living. If all revolutionists were not proof against all caution, I +should recommend it to their consideration, that no persons were ever +known in history, either sacred or profane, to vex the sepulchre, and by +their sorceries to call up the prophetic dead, with any other event than +the prediction of their own disastrous fate.--"Leave me, oh, leave me to +repose!" + +In one thing I can excuse the Duke of Bedford for his attack upon me and +my mortuary pension: He cannot readily comprehend the transaction he +condemns. What I have obtained was the fruit of no bargain, the +production of no intrigue, the result of no compromise, the effect of no +solicitation. The first suggestion of it never came from me, mediately +or immediately, to his Majesty or any of his ministers. It was long +known that the instant my engagements would permit it, and before the +heaviest of all calamities had forever condemned me to obscurity and +sorrow, I had resolved on a total retreat. I had executed that design. I +was entirely out of the way of serving or of hurting any statesman or +any party, when the ministers so generously and so nobly carried into +effect the spontaneous bounty of the crown. Both descriptions have acted +as became them. When I could no longer serve them, the ministers have +considered my situation. When I could no longer hurt them, the +revolutionists have trampled on my infirmity. My gratitude, I trust, is +equal to the manner in which the benefit was conferred. It came to me, +indeed, at a time of life, and in a state of mind and body, in which no +circumstance of fortune could afford me any real pleasure. But this was +no fault in the royal donor, or in his ministers, who were pleased, in +acknowledging the merits of an invalid servant of the public, to assuage +the sorrows of a desolate old man. + +It would ill become me to boast of anything. It would as ill become me, +thus called upon, to depreciate the value of a long life spent with +unexampled toil in the service of my country. Since the total body of my +services, on account of the industry which was shown in them, and the +fairness of my intentions, have obtained the acceptance of my sovereign, +it would be absurd in me to range myself on the side of the Duke of +Bedford and the Corresponding Society, or, as far as in me lies, to +permit a dispute on the rate at which the authority appointed by _our_ +Constitution to estimate such things has been pleased to set them. + +Loose libels ought to be passed by in silence and contempt. By me they +have been so always. I knew, that, as long as I remained in public, I +should live down the calumnies of malice and the judgments of ignorance. +If I happened to be now and then in the wrong, (as who is not?) like all +other men, I must bear the consequence of my faults and my mistakes. The +libels of the present day are just of the same stuff as the libels of +the past. But they derive an importance from the rank of the persons +they come from, and the gravity of the place where they were uttered. In +some way or other I ought to take some notice of them. To assert myself +thus traduced is not vanity or arrogance. It is a demand of justice; it +is a demonstration of gratitude. If I am unworthy, the ministers are +worse than prodigal. On that hypothesis, I perfectly agree with the Duke +of Bedford. + +For whatever I have been (I am now no more) I put myself on my country. +I ought to be allowed a reasonable freedom, because I stand upon my +deliverance; and no culprit ought to plead in irons. Even in the utmost +latitude of defensive liberty, I wish to preserve all possible decorum. +Whatever it may be in the eyes of these noble persons themselves, to me +their situation calls for the most profound respect. If I should happen +to trespass a little, which I trust I shall not, let it always be +supposed that a confusion of characters may produce mistakes,--that, in +the masquerades of the grand carnival of our age, whimsical adventures +happen, odd things are said and pass off. If I should fail a single +point in the high respect I owe to those illustrious persons, I cannot +be supposed to mean the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale of +the House of Peers, but the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale +of Palace Yard,--the Dukes and Earls of Brentford. There they are on the +pavement; there they seem to come nearer to my humble level, and, +virtually at least, to have waived their high privilege. + +Making this protestation, I refuse all revolutionary tribunals, where +men have been put to death for no other reason than that they had +obtained favors from the crown. I claim, not the letter, but the spirit +of the old English law,--that is, to be tried by my peers. I decline his +Grace's jurisdiction as a judge. I challenge the Duke of Bedford as a +juror to pass upon the value of my services. Whatever his natural parts +may be, I cannot recognize in his few and idle years the competence to +judge of my long and laborious life. If I can help it, he shall not be +on the inquest of my _quantum meruit_. Poor rich man! he can hardly know +anything of public industry in its exertions, or can estimate its +compensations when its work is done. I have no doubt of his Grace's +readiness in all the calculations of vulgar arithmetic; but I shrewdly +suspect that he is little studied in the theory of moral proportions, +and has never learned the rule of three in the arithmetic of policy and +state. + +His Grace thinks I have obtained too much. I answer, that my exertions, +whatever they have been, were such as no hopes of pecuniary reward could +possibly excite; and no pecuniary compensation can possibly reward them. +Between money and such services, if done by abler men than I am, there +is no common principle of comparison: they are quantities +incommensurable. Money is made for the comfort and convenience of animal +life. It cannot be a reward for what mere animal life must, indeed, +sustain, but never can inspire. With submission to his Grace, I have not +had more than sufficient. As to any noble use, I trust I know how to +employ as well as he a much greater fortune than he possesses. In a more +confined application, I certainly stand in need of every kind of relief +and easement much more than he does. When I say I have not received more +than I deserve, is this the language I hold to Majesty? No! Far, very +far, from it! Before that presence I claim no merit at all. Everything +towards me is favor and bounty. One style to a gracious benefactor; +another to a proud and insulting foe. + +His Grace is pleased to aggravate my guilt by charging my acceptance of +his Majesty's grant as a departure from my ideas and the spirit of my +conduct with regard to economy. If it be, my ideas of economy wore false +and ill-founded. But they are the Duke of Bedford's ideas of economy I +have contradicted, and not my own. If he means to allude to certain +bills brought in by me on a message from the throne in 1782, I tell him +that there is nothing in my conduct that can contradict either the +letter or the spirit of those acts. Does he mean the Pay-Office Act? I +take it for granted he does not. The act to which he alludes is, I +suppose, the Establishment Act. I greatly doubt whether his Grace has +ever read the one or the other. The first of these systems cost me, with +every assistance which my then situation gave me, pains incredible. I +found an opinion common through all the offices, and general in the +public at large, that it would prove impossible to reform and methodize +the office of pay-master-general. I undertook it, however; and I +succeeded in my undertaking. Whether the military service, or whether +the general economy of our finances have profited by that act, I leave +to those who are acquainted with the army and with the treasury to +judge. + +An opinion full as general prevailed also, at the same time, that +nothing could be done for the regulation of the civil list +establishment. The very attempt to introduce method into it, and any +limitations to its services, was held absurd. I had not seen the man who +so much as suggested one economical principle or an economical expedient +upon that subject. Nothing but coarse amputation or coarser taxation +were then talked of, both of them without design, combination, or the +least shadow of principle. Blind and headlong zeal or factious fury were +the whole contribution brought by the most noisy, on that occasion, +towards the satisfaction of the public or the relief of the crown. + +Let me tell my youthful censor, that the necessities of that time +required something very different from what others then suggested or +what his Grace now conceives. Let me inform him, that it was one of the +most critical periods in our annals. + +Astronomers have supposed, that, if a certain comet, whose path +intersected the ecliptic, had met the earth in some (I forgot what) +sign, it would have whirled us along with it, in its eccentric course, +into God knows what regions of heat and cold. Had the portentous comet +of the Rights of Man, (which "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and +war," and "with fear of change perplexes monarchs,") had that comet +crossed upon us in that internal state of England, nothing human could +have prevented our being irresistibly hurried out of the highway of +heaven into all the vices, crimes, horrors, and miseries of the French +Revolution. + +Happily, France was not then Jacobinized. Her hostility was at a good +distance. We had a limb cut off, but we preserved the body: we lost our +colonies, but we kept our Constitution. There was, indeed, much +intestine heat; there was a dreadful fermentation. Wild and savage +insurrection quitted the woods, and prowled about our streets in the +name of Reform. Such was the distemper of the public mind, that there +was no madman, in his maddest ideas and maddest projects, who might not +count upon numbers to support his principles and execute his designs. + +Many of the changes, by a great misnomer called Parliamentary Reforms, +went, not in the intention of all the professors and supporters of them, +undoubtedly, but went in their certain, and, in my opinion, not very +remote effect, home to the utter destruction of the Constitution of this +kingdom. Had they taken place, not France, but England, would have had +the honor of leading up the death-dance of democratic revolution. Other +projects, exactly coincident in time with those, struck at the very +existence of the kingdom under any Constitution. There are who remember +the blind fury of some and the lamentable helplessness of others; here, +a torpid confusion, from a panic fear of the danger,--there, the same +inaction, from a stupid insensibility to it; here, well-wishers to the +mischief,--there, indifferent lookers-on. At the same time, a sort of +National Convention, dubious in its nature and perilous in its example, +nosed Parliament in the very seat of its authority,--sat with a sort of +superintendence over it,--and little less than dictated to it, not only +laws, but the very form and essence of legislature itself. In Ireland +things ran in a still more eccentric course. Government was unnerved, +confounded, and in a manner suspended. Its equipoise was totally gone. I +do not mean to speak disrespectfully of Lord North. He was a man of +admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding +fitted for every sort of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a +delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested. But it +would be only to degrade myself by a weak adulation, and not to honor +the memory of a great man, to deny that he wanted something of the +vigilance and spirit of command that the time required. Indeed, a +darkness next to the fog of this awful day lowered over the whole +region. For a little time the helm appeared abandoned. + + Ipse diem noctemque negat discernere coelo, + Nec meminisse viae media Palinurus in unda. + +At that time I was connected with men of high place in the community. +They loved liberty as much as the Duke of Bedford can do; and they +understood it at least as well. Perhaps their politics, as usual, took a +tincture from their character, and they cultivated what they loved. The +liberty they pursued was a liberty inseparable from order, from virtue, +from morals, and from religion,--and was neither hypocritically nor +fanatically followed. They did not wish that liberty, in itself one of +the first of blessings, should in its perversion become the greatest +curse which could fall upon mankind. To preserve the Constitution +entire, and practically equal to all the great ends of its formation, +not in one single part, but in all its parts, was to them the first +object. Popularity and power they regarded alike. These were with them +only different means of obtaining that object, and had no preference +over each other in their minds, but as one or the other might afford a +surer or a less certain prospect of arriving at that end. It is some +consolation to me, in the cheerless gloom which darkens the evening of +my life, that with them I commenced my political career, and never for a +moment, in reality nor in appearance, for any length of time, was +separated from their good wishes and good opinion. + +By what accident it matters not, nor upon what desert, but just then, +and in the midst of that hunt of obloquy which ever has pursued me with +a full cry through life, I had obtained a very considerable degree of +public confidence. I know well enough how equivocal a test this kind of +popular opinion forms of the merit that obtained it. I am no stranger to +the insecurity of its tenure. I do not boast of it. It is mentioned to +show, not how highly I prize the thing, but my right to value the use I +made of it. I endeavored to turn that short-lived advantage to myself +into a permanent benefit to my country. Far am I from detracting from +the merit of some gentlemen, out of office or in it, on that occasion. +No! It is not my way to refuse a full and heaped measure of justice to +the aids that I receive. I have through life been willing to give +everything to others,--and to reserve nothing for myself, but the inward +conscience that I had omitted no pains to discover, to animate, to +discipline, to direct the abilities of the country for its service, and +to place them in the best light to improve their age, or to adorn it. +This conscience I have. I have never suppressed any man, never checked +him for a moment in his course, by any jealousy, or by any policy. I was +always ready, to the height of my means, (and they wore always +infinitely below my desires,) to forward those abilities which +overpowered my own. He is an ill-furnished undertaker who has no +machinery but his own hands to work with. Poor in my own faculties, I +ever thought myself rich in theirs. In that period of difficulty and +danger, more especially, I consulted and sincerely cooeperated with men +of all parties who seemed disposed to the same ends, or to any main part +of them. Nothing to prevent disorder was omitted: when it appeared, +nothing to subdue it was left uncounselled nor unexecuted, as far as I +could prevail. At the time I speak of, and having a momentary lead, so +aided and so encouraged, and as a feeble instrument in a mighty hand--I +do not say I saved my country; I am sure I did my country important +service. There were few, indeed, that did not at that time acknowledge +it,--and that time was thirteen years ago. It was but one voice, that no +man in the kingdom better deserved an honorable provision should be made +for him. So much for my general conduct through the whole of the +portentous crisis from 1780 to 1782, and the general sense then +entertained of that conduct by my country. But my character as a +reformer, in the particular instances which the Duke of Bedford refers +to, is so connected in principle with my opinions on the hideous changes +which have since barbarized France, and, spreading thence, threaten the +political and moral order of the whole world, that it seems to demand +something of a more detailed discussion. + +My economical reforms were not, as his Grace may think, the suppression +of a paltry pension or employment, more or less. Economy in my plans +was, as it ought to be, secondary, subordinate, instrumental. I acted on +state principles. I found a great distemper in the commonwealth, and +according to the nature of the evil and of the object I treated it. The +malady was deep; it was complicated, in the causes and in the symptoms. +Throughout it was full of contra-indicants. On one hand, government, +daily growing more invidious from an apparent increase of the means of +strength, was every day growing more contemptible by real weakness. Nor +was this dissolution confined to government commonly so called. It +extended to Parliament, which was losing not a little in its dignity and +estimation by an opinion of its not acting on worthy motives. On the +other hand, the desires of the people (partly natural and partly infused +into them by art) appeared in so wild and inconsiderate a manner with +regard to the economical object, (for I set aside for a moment the +dreadful tampering with the body of the Constitution itself,) that, if +their petitions had literally been complied with, the state would have +been convulsed, and a gate would have been opened through which all +property might be sacked and ravaged. Nothing could have saved the +public from the mischiefs of the false reform but its absurdity, which +would soon have brought itself, and with it all real reform, into +discredit. This would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the +people, who would know they had failed in the accomplishment of their +wishes, but who, like the rest of mankind in all ages, would impute the +blame to anything rather than to their own proceedings. But there were +then persons in the world who nourished complaint, and would have been +thoroughly disappointed, if the people were ever satisfied. I was not of +that humor. I wished that they _should_ be satisfied. It was my aim to +give to the people the substance of what I knew they desired, and what I +thought was right, whether they desired it or not, before it had been +modified for them into senseless petitions. I knew that there is a +manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak +men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding,--that is, a +marked distinction between change and reformation. The former alters the +substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential +good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is +novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of +reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle +upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. +Reform is not a change in the substance or in the primary modification +of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance +complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; +and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the +very worst, is but where it was. + +All this, in effect, I think, but am not sure, I have said elsewhere. It +cannot at this time be too often repeated, line upon line, precept upon +precept, until it comes into the currency of a proverb,--_To innovate is +not to reform_. The French revolutionists complained of everything; they +refused to reform anything; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all, +_unchanged_. The consequences are _before_ us,--not in remote history, +not in future prognostication: they are about us; they are upon us. They +shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment. They dwarf the +growth of the young; they break the quiet of the old. If we travel, they +stop our way. They infest us in town; they pursue us to the country. Our +business is interrupted, our repose is troubled, our pleasures are +saddened, our very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is +rendered worse than ignorance, by the enormous evils of this dreadful +innovation. The Revolution harpies of France, sprung from Night and +Hell, or from that chaotic Anarchy which generates equivocally "all +monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their +eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neighboring +state. These obscene harpies, who deck themselves in I know not what +divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of +prey, (both mothers and daughters,) flutter over our heads, and souse +down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or +unpolluted with the slime of their filthy offal.[15] + +If his Grace can contemplate the result of this complete innovation, or, +as some friends of his will call it, _reform_, in the whole body of its +solidity and compound mass, at which, as Hamlet says, the face of heaven +glows with horror and indignation, and which, in truth, makes every +reflecting mind and every feeling heart perfectly thought-sick, without +a thorough abhorrence of everything they say and everything they do, I +am amazed at the morbid strength or the natural infirmity of his mind. + +It was, then, not my love, but my hatred to innovation, that produced my +plan of reform. Without troubling myself with the exactness of the +logical diagram, I considered them as things substantially opposite. It +was to prevent that evil, that I proposed the measures which his Grace +is pleased, and I am not sorry he is pleased, to recall to my +recollection. I had (what I hope that noble Duke will remember in all +his operations) a state to preserve, as well as a state to reform. I had +a people to gratify, but not to inflame or to mislead. I do not claim +half the credit for what I did as for what I prevented from being done. +In that situation of the public mind, I did not undertake, as was then +proposed, to new-model the House of Commons or the House of Lords, or +to change the authority under which any officer of the crown acted, who +was suffered at all to exist. Crown, lords, commons, judicial system, +system of administration, existed as they had existed before, and in the +mode and manner in which they had always existed. My measures were, what +I then truly stated them to the House to be, in their intent, healing +and mediatorial. A complaint was made of too much influence in the House +of Commons: I reduced it in both Houses; and I gave my reasons, article +by article, for every reduction, and showed why I thought it safe for +the service of the state. I heaved the lead every inch of way I made. A +disposition to expense was complained of: to that I opposed, not mere +retrenchment, but a system of economy, which would make a random +expense, without plan or foresight, in future, not easily practicable. I +proceeded upon principles of research to put me in possession of my +matter, on principles of method to regulate it, and on principles in the +human mind and in civil affairs to secure and perpetuate the operation. +I conceived nothing arbitrarily, nor proposed anything to be done by the +will and pleasure of others or my own,--but by reason, and by reason +only. I have ever abhorred, since the first dawn of my understanding to +this its obscure twilight, all the operations of opinion, fancy, +inclination, and will, in the affairs of government, where only a +sovereign reason, paramount to all forms of legislation and +administration, should dictate. Government is made for the very purpose +of opposing that reason to will and to caprice, in the reformers or in +the reformed, in the governors or in the governed, in kings, in senates, +or in people. + +On a careful review, therefore, and analysis of all the component parts +of the civil list, and on weighing them against each other, in order to +make as much as possible all of them a subject of estimate, (the +foundation and corner-stone of all regular, provident economy,) it +appeared to me evident that this was impracticable, whilst that part +called the pension list was totally discretionary in its amount. For +this reason, and for this only, I proposed to reduce it, both in its +gross quantity and in its larger individual proportions, to a certainty; +lest, if it were left without a _general_ limit, it might eat up the +civil list service,--if suffered to be granted in portions too great for +the fund, it might defeat its own end, and, by unlimited allowances to +some, it might disable the crown in means of providing for others. The +pension list was to be kept as a sacred fund; but it could not be kept +as a constant, open fund, sufficient for growing demands, if some +demands would wholly devour it. The tenor of the act will show that it +regarded the civil list _only_, the reduction of which to some sort of +estimate was my great object. + +No other of the crown funds did I meddle with, because they had not the +same relations. This of the four and a half per cents does his Grace +imagine had escaped me, or had escaped all the men of business who acted +with me in those regulations? I knew that such a fund existed, and that +pensions had been always granted on it, before his Grace was born. This +fund was full in my eye. It was full in the eyes of those who worked +with me. It was left on principle. On principle I did what was then +done; and on principle what was left undone was omitted. I did not dare +to rob the nation of all funds to reward merit. If I pressed this point +too close, I acted contrary to the avowed principles on which I went. +Gentlemen are very fond of quoting me; but if any one thinks it worth +his while to know the rules that guided me in my plan of reform, he will +read my printed speech on that subject, at least what is contained from +page 230 to page 241 in the second volume of the collection[16] which a +friend has given himself the trouble to make of my publications. Be this +as it may, these two bills (though achieved with the greatest labor, and +management of every sort, both within and without the House) were only a +part, and but a small part, of a very large system, comprehending all +the objects I stated in opening my proposition, and, indeed, many more, +which I just hinted at in my speech to the electors of Bristol, when I +was put out of that representation. All these, in some state or other of +forwardness, I have long had by me. + +But do I justify his Majesty's grace on these grounds? I think them the +least of my services. The time gave them an occasional value. What I +have done in the way of political economy was far from confined to this +body of measures. I did not come into Parliament to con my lesson. I had +earned my pension before I set my foot in St. Stephen's Chapel. I was +prepared and disciplined to this political warfare. The first session I +sat in Parliament, I found it necessary to analyze the whole commercial, +financial, constitutional, and foreign interests of Great Britain and +its empire. A great deal was then done; and more, far more, would have +been done, if more had been permitted by events. Then, in the vigor of +my manhood, my constitution sunk under my labor. Had I then died, (and +I seemed to myself very near death,) I had then earned for those who +belonged to me more than the Duke of Bedford's ideas of service are of +power to estimate. But, in truth, these services I am called to account +for are not those on which I value myself the most. If I were to call +for a reward, (which I have never done,) it should be for those in which +for fourteen years without intermission I showed the most industry and +had the least success: I mean in the affairs of India. They are those on +which I value myself the most: most for the importance, most for the +labor, most for the judgment, most for constancy and perseverance in the +pursuit. Others may value them most for the _intention_. In that, +surely, they are not mistaken. + +Does his Grace think that they who advised the crown to make my retreat +easy considered me only as an economist? That, well understood, however, +is a good deal. If I had not deemed it of some value, I should not have +made political economy an object of my humble studies from my very early +youth to near the end of my service in Parliament, even before (at least +to any knowledge of mine) it had employed the thoughts of speculative +men in other parts of Europe. At that time it was still in its infancy +in England, where, in the last century, it had its origin. Great and +learned men thought my studies were not wholly thrown away, and deigned +to communicate with me now and then on some particulars of their +immortal works. Something of these studies may appear incidentally in +some of the earliest things I published. The House has been witness to +their effect, and has profited of them, more or less, for above +eight-and-twenty years. + +To their estimate I leave the matter. I was not, like his Grace of +Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator: "_Nitor in +adversum_" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the +qualities nor cultivated one of the arts that recommend men to the favor +and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As +little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts by imposing on the +understandings of the people. At every step of my progress in life, (for +in every step was I traversed and opposed,) and at every turnpike I met, +I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole +title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was +not wholly unacquainted with its laws and the whole system of its +interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration +even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, +please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, +to the last gasp will I stand. + +Had his Grace condescended to inquire concerning the person whom he has +not thought it below him to reproach, he might have found, that, in the +whole course of my life, I have never, on any pretence of economy, or on +any other pretence, so much as in a single instance, stood between any +man and his reward of service or his encouragement in useful talent and +pursuit, from the highest of those services and pursuits to the lowest. +On the contrary, I have on an hundred occasions exerted myself with +singular zeal to forward every man's even tolerable pretensions. I have +more than once had good-natured reprehensions from my friends for +carrying the matter to something bordering on abuse. This line of +conduct, whatever its merits might be, was partly owing to natural +disposition, but I think full as much to reason and principle. I looked +on the consideration of public service or public ornament to be real and +very justice; and I ever held a scanty and penurious justice to partake +of the nature of a wrong. I held it to be, in its consequences, the +worst economy in the world. In saving money I soon can count up all the +good I do; but when by a cold penury I blast the abilities of a nation, +and stunt the growth of its active energies, the ill I may do is beyond +all calculation. Whether it be too much or too little, whatever I have +done has been general and systematic. I have never entered into those +trifling vexations and oppressive details that have been falsely and +most ridiculously laid to my charge. + +Did I blame the pensions given to Mr. Barre and Mr. Dunning between the +proposition and execution of my plan? No! surely, no! Those pensions +were within my principles. I assert it, those gentlemen deserved their +pensions, their titles,--all they had; and if more they had, I should +have been but pleased the more. They were men of talents; they were men +of service. I put the profession of the law out of the question in one +of them. It is a service that rewards itself. But their _public +service_, though from their abilities unquestionably of more value than +mine, in its quantity and in its duration was not to be mentioned with +it. But I never could drive a hard bargain in my life, concerning any +matter whatever; and least of all do I know how to haggle and huckster +with merit. Pension for myself I obtained none; nor did I solicit any. +Yet I was loaded with hatred for everything that was withheld, and with +obloquy for everything that was given. I was thus left to support the +grants of a name ever dear to me and ever venerable to the world in +favor of those who were no friends of mine or of his, against the rude +attacks of those who were at that time friends to the grantees and their +own zealous partisans. I have never heard the Earl of Lauderdale +complain of these pensions. He finds nothing wrong till he comes to me. +This is impartiality, in the true, modern, revolutionary style. + +Whatever I did at that time, so far as it regarded order and economy, is +stable and eternal, as all principles must be. A particular order of +things may be altered: order itself cannot lose its value. As to other +particulars, they are variable by time and by circumstances. Laws of +regulation are not fundamental laws. The public exigencies are the +masters of all such laws. They rule the laws, and are not to be ruled by +them. They who exercise the legislative power at the time must judge. + +It may be new to his Grace, but I beg leave to tell him that mere +parsimony is not economy. It is separable in theory from it; and in fact +it may or it may not be a _part_ of economy, according to circumstances. +Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If +parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, +there is, however, another and an higher economy. Economy is a +distributive virtue, and consists, not in saving, but in selection. +Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, +no comparison, no judgment. Mere instinct, and that not an instinct of +the noblest kind, may produce this false economy in perfection. The +other economy has larger views. It demands a discriminating judgment, +and a firm, sagacious mind. It shuts one door to impudent importunity, +only to open another, and a wider, to unpresuming merit. If none but +meritorious service or real talent were to be rewarded, this nation has +not wanted, and this nation will not want, the means of rewarding all +the service it ever will receive, and encouraging all the merit it ever +will produce. No state, since the foundation of society, has been +impoverished by that species of profusion. Had the economy of selection +and proportion been at all times observed, we should not now have had an +overgrown Duke of Bedford, to oppress the industry of humble men, and to +limit, by the standard of his own conceptions, the justice, the bounty, +or, if he pleases, the charity of the crown. + +His Grace may think as meanly as he will of my deserts in the far +greater part of my conduct in life. It is free for him to do so. There +will always be some difference of opinion in the value of political +services. But there is one merit of mine which he, of all men living, +ought to be the last to call in question. I have supported with very +great zeal, and I am told with some degree of success, those opinions, +or, if his Grace likes another expression better, those old prejudices, +which buoy up the ponderous mass of his nobility, wealth, and titles. I +have omitted no exertion to prevent him and them from sinking to that +level to which the meretricious French faction his Grace at least +coquets with omit no exertion to reduce both. I have done all I could to +discountenance their inquiries into the fortunes of those who hold large +portions of wealth without any apparent merit of their own. I have +strained every nerve to keep the Duke of Bedford in that situation +which alone makes him my superior. Your Lordship has been a witness of +the use he makes of that preeminence. + +But be it that this is virtue; be it that there is virtue in this +well-selected rigor: yet all virtues are not equally becoming to all men +and at all times. There are crimes, undoubtedly there are crimes, which +in all seasons of our existence ought to put a generous antipathy in +action,--crimes that provoke an indignant justice, and call forth a warm +and animated pursuit. But all things that concern what I may call the +preventive police of morality, all things merely rigid, harsh, and +censorial, the antiquated moralists at whose feet I was brought up would +not have thought these the fittest matter to form the favorite virtues +of young men of rank. What might have been well enough, and have been +received with a veneration mixed with awe and terror, from an old, +severe, crabbed Cato, would have wanted something of propriety in the +young Scipios, the ornament of the Roman nobility, in the flower of +their life. But the times, the morals, the masters, the scholars, have +all undergone a thorough revolution. It is a vile, illiberal school, +this new French academy of the _sans-culottes_. There is nothing in it +that is fit for a gentleman to learn. + +Whatever its vogue may be, I still flatter myself that the parents of +the growing generation will be satisfied with what is to be taught to +their children in Westminster, in Eton, or in Winchester; I still +indulge the hope that no _grown_ gentleman or nobleman of our time will +think of finishing at Mr. Thelwall's lecture whatever may have been left +incomplete at the old universities of his country. I would give to Lord +Grenville and Mr. Pitt for a motto what was said of a Roman censor or +praetor (or what was he?) who in virtue of a _Senatusconsultum_ shut up +certain academies,--"_Cludere ludum impudentiae jussit_." Every honest +father of a family in the kingdom will rejoice at the breaking-up for +the holidays, and will pray that there may be a very long vacation, in +all such schools. + +The awful state of the time, and not myself, or my own justification, is +my true object in what I now write, or in what I shall ever write or +say. It little signifies to the world what becomes of such things as me, +or even as the Duke of Bedford. What I say about either of us is nothing +more than a vehicle, as you, my Lord, will easily perceive, to convey my +sentiments on matters far more worthy of your attention. It is when I +stick to my apparent first subject that I ought to apologize, not when I +depart from it. I therefore must beg your Lordship's pardon for again +resuming it after this very short digression,--assuring you that I shall +never altogether lose sight of such matter as persons abler than I am +may turn to some profit. + +The Duke of Bedford conceives that he is obliged to call the attention +of the House of Peers to his Majesty's grant to me, which he considers +as excessive and out of all bounds. + +I know not how it has happened, but it really seems, that, whilst his +Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fell into a +sort of sleep. Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as +dreams (even his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-pieced and +incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to +_me_, but took the subject-matter from the crown grants _to his own +family_. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way +of putting things together his Grace is perfectly in the right. The +grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage +economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the +leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his +unwieldy bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. +Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a +creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very +spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, +and covers me all over with the spray, everything of him and about him +is from the throne. Is it for _him_ to question the dispensation of the +royal favor? + +I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public +merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and +these services of mine, on the favorable construction of which I have +obtained what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life I have not +at all the honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke; but I ought to +presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves +the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to public service, +why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself, in +rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, +with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services +and my attempts to be useful to my country. It would not be gross +adulation, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his +own to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed +pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are original and +personal: his are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original +pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit which makes +his Grace so very delicate and exceptious about the merit of all other +grantees of the crown. Had he permitted me to remain in quiet, I should +have said, "'Tis his estate: that's enough. It is his by law: what have +I to do with it or its history?" He would naturally have said, on his +side, "'Tis this man's fortune. He is as good now as my ancestor was two +hundred and fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions; he +is an old man with very young pensions: that's all." + +Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my +little merit with that which obtained from the crown those prodigies of +profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of humble and +laborious individuals? I would willingly leave him to the Herald's +College, which the philosophy of the _sans-culottes_ (prouder by far +than all the Garters, and Norroys, and Clarencieux, and Rouge-Dragons +that ever pranced in a procession of what his friends call aristocrats +and despots) will abolish with contumely and scorn. These historians, +recorders, and blazoners of virtues and arms differ wholly from that +other description of historians who never assign any act of politicians +to a good motive. These gentle historians, on the contrary, dip their +pens in nothing but the milk of human kindness. They seek no further for +merit than the preamble of a patent or the inscription on a tomb. With +them every man created a peer is first an hero ready-made. They judge of +every man's capacity for office by the offices he has filled; and the +more offices, the more ability. Every general officer with them is a +Marlborough, every statesman a Burleigh, every judge a Murray or a +Yorke. They who, alive, were laughed at or pitied by all their +acquaintance make as good a figure as the best of them in the pages of +Guillim, Edmondson, and Collins. + +To these recorders, so full of good-nature to the great and prosperous, +I would willingly leave the first Baron Russell and Earl of Bedford, and +the merits of his grants. But the aulnager, the weigher, the meter of +grants will not suffer us to acquiesce in the judgment of the prince +reigning at the time when they were made. They are never good to those +who earn them. Well, then, since the new grantees have war made on them +by the old, and that the word of the sovereign is not to be taken, let +us turn our eyes to history, in which great men have always a pleasure +in contemplating the heroic origin of their house. + +The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the grants, was a Mr. +Russell, a person of an ancient gentleman's family, raised by being a +minion of Henry the Eighth. As there generally is some resemblance of +character to create these relations, the favorite was in all likelihood +much such another as his master. The first of those immoderate grants +was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent +confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land. The lion, having +sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in +waiting. Having tasted once the food of confiscation, the favorites +became fierce and ravenous. This worthy favorite's first grant was from +the lay nobility. The second, infinitely improving on the enormity of +the first, was from the plunder of the Church. In truth, his Grace is +somewhat excusable for his dislike to a grant like mine, not only in its +quantity, but in its kind, so different from his own. + +Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign: his from Henry the +Eighth. + +Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of +illustrious rank,[17] or in the pillage of any body of unoffending men. +His grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments +iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by the +lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door. + +The merit of the grantee whom he derives from was that of being a prompt +and greedy instrument of a _levelling_ tyrant, who oppressed all +descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on +everything that was _great and noble_. Mine has been in endeavoring to +screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in +defending the high and eminent, who, in the bad times of confiscating +princes, confiscating chief governors, or confiscating demagogues, are +the most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy. + +The merit of the original grantee of his Grace's pensions was in giving +his hand to the work, and partaking the spoil, with a prince who +plundered a part of the national Church of his time and country. Mine +was in defending the whole of the national Church of my own time and my +own country, and the whole of the national Churches of all countries, +from the principles and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical +pillage, thence to a contempt of _all_ prescriptive titles, thence to +the pillage of _all_ property, and thence to universal desolation. + +The merit of the origin of his Grace's fortune was in being a favorite +and chief adviser to a prince who left no liberty to their native +country. My endeavor was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in +which I was born, and for all descriptions and denominations in it. Mine +was to support with unrelaxing vigilance every right, every privilege, +every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer, and more comprehensive +country; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief seat of +empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language, +and religion, in the vast domain that still is under the protection, and +the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown. + +His founder's merits were, by arts in which he served his master and +made his fortune, to bring poverty, wretchedness, and depopulation on +his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the +commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of his kingdom,--in which his +Majesty shows an eminent example, who even in his amusements is a +patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native soil. + +His founder's merit was the merit of a gentleman raised by the arts of a +court and the protection of a Wolsey to the eminence of a great and +potent lord. His merit in that eminence was, by instigating a tyrant to +injustice, to provoke a people to rebellion. My merit was, to awaken the +sober part of the country, that they might put themselves on their +guard against any one potent lord, or any greater number of potent +lords, or any combination of great leading men of any sort, if ever they +should attempt to proceed in the same courses, but in the reverse +order,--that is, by instigating a corrupted populace to rebellion, and, +through that rebellion, introducing a tyranny yet worse than the tyranny +which his Grace's ancestor supported, and of which he profited in the +manner we behold in the despotism of Henry the Eighth. + +The political merit of the first pensioner of his Grace's house was that +of being concerned as a counsellor of state in advising, and in his +person executing, the conditions of a dishonorable peace with +France,--the surrendering the fortress of Boulogne, then our outguard on +the Continent. By that surrender, Calais, the key of France, and the +bridle in the mouth of that power, was not many years afterwards finally +lost. My merit has been in resisting the power and pride of France, +under any form of its rule; but in opposing it with the greatest zeal +and earnestness, when that rule appeared in the worst form it could +assume,--the worst, indeed, which the prime cause and principle of all +evil could possibly give it. It was my endeavor by every means to excite +a spirit in the House, where I had the honor of a seat, for carrying on +with early vigor and decision the most clearly just and necessary war +that this or any nation ever carried on, in order to save my country +from the iron yoke of its power, and from the more dreadful contagion of +its principles,--to preserve, while they can be preserved, pure and +untainted, the ancient, inbred integrity, piety, good-nature, and +good-humor of the people of England, from the dreadful pestilence which, +beginning in France, threatens to lay waste the whole moral and in a +great degree the whole physical world, having done both in the focus of +its most intense malignity. + +The labors of his Grace's founder merited the "curses, not loud, but +deep," of the Commons of England, on whom _he_ and his master had +effected a _complete Parliamentary Reform_, by making them, in their +slavery and humiliation, the true and adequate representatives of a +debased, degraded, and undone people. My merits were in having had an +active, though not always an ostentatious share, in every one act, +without exception, of undisputed constitutional utility in my time, and +in having supported, on all occasions, the authority, the efficiency, +and the privileges of the Commons of Great Britain. I ended my services +by a recorded and fully reasoned assertion on their own journals of +their constitutional rights, and a vindication of their constitutional +conduct. I labored in all things to merit their inward approbation, and +(along with the assistants of the largest, the greatest, and best of my +endeavors) I received their free, unbiased, public, and solemn thanks. + +Thus stands the account of the comparative merits of the crown grants +which compose the Duke of Bedford's fortune as balanced against mine. In +the name of common sense, why should the Duke of Bedford think that none +but of the House of Russell are entitled to the favor of the crown? Why +should he imagine that no king of England has been capable of judging of +merit but King Henry the Eighth? Indeed, he will pardon me, he is a +little mistaken: all virtue did not end in the first Earl of Bedford; +all discernment did not lose its vision when his creator closed his +eyes. Let him remit his rigor on the disproportion between merit and +reward in others, and they will make no inquiry into the origin of his +fortune. They will regard with much more satisfaction, as he will +contemplate with infinitely more advantage, whatever in his pedigree has +been dulcified by an exposure to the influence of heaven in a long flow +of generations from the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of the +spring. It is little to be doubted that several of his forefathers in +that long series have degenerated into honor and virtue. Let the Duke of +Bedford (I am sure he will) reject with scorn and horror the counsels of +the lecturers, those wicked panders to avarice and ambition, who would +tempt him, in the troubles of his country, to seek another enormous +fortune from the forfeitures of another nobility and the plunder of +another Church. Let him (and I trust that yet he will) employ all the +energy of his youth and all the resources of his wealth to crush +rebellious principles which have no foundation in morals, and rebellious +movements that have no provocation in tyranny. + +Then will be forgot the rebellions which, by a doubtful priority in +crime, his ancestor had provoked and extinguished. On such a conduct in +the noble Duke, many of his countrymen might, and with some excuse +might, give way to the enthusiasm of their gratitude, and, in the +dashing style of some of the old declaimers, cry out, that, if the Fates +had found no other way in which they could give a[18] Duke of Bedford +and his opulence as props to a tottering world, then the butchery of +the Duke of Buckingham might be tolerated; it might be regarded even +with complacency, whilst in the heir of confiscation they saw the +sympathizing comforter of the martyrs who suffer under the cruel +confiscation of this day, whilst they beheld with admiration his zealous +protection of the virtuous and loyal nobility of France, and his manly +support of his brethren, the yet standing nobility and gentry of his +native land. Then his Grace's merit would be pure and new and sharp, as +fresh from the mint of honor. As he pleased, he might reflect honor on +his predecessors, or throw it forward on those who were to succeed him. +He might be the propagator of the stock of honor, or the root of it, as +he thought proper. + +Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should +have been, according to my mediocrity and the mediocrity of the age I +live in, a sort of founder of a family: I should have left a son, who, +in all the points in which personal merit can be viewed, in science, in +erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in generosity, in humanity, in +every liberal sentiment and every liberal accomplishment, would not have +shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom +he traces in his line. His Grace very soon would have wanted all +plausibility in his attack upon that provision which belonged more to +mine than to me. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and +symmetrized every disproportion. It would not have been for that +successor to resort to any stagnant, wasting reservoir of merit in me, +or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, living spring of +generous and manly action. Every day he lived he would have repurchased +the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had +received. He was made a public creature, and had no enjoyment whatever +but in the performance of some duty. At this exigent moment the loss of +a finished man is not easily supplied. + +But a Disposer whose power we are little able to resist, and whose +wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another +manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. +The storm has gone over me; and I lie like one of those old oaks which +the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my +honors, I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth. +There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognize the Divine +justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself +before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of +unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After +some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted +himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him +blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal +asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dunghill to +read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am +alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I +greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of +refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is +the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an +indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to +shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain and poverty and +disease. It is an instinct; and under the direction of reason, instinct +is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who ought to +have succeeded me are gone before me. They who should have been to me as +posterity are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation +(which ever must subsist in memory) that act of piety which he would +have performed to me: I owe it to him to show that he was not descended, +as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. + +The crown has considered me after long service: the crown has paid the +Duke of Bedford by advance. He has had a long credit for any service +which he may perform hereafter. He is secure, and long may he be secure, +in his advance, whether he performs any services or not. But let him +take care how he endangers the safety of that Constitution which secures +his own utility or his own insignificance, or how he discourages those +who take up even puny arms to defend an order of things which, like the +sun of heaven, shines alike on the useful and the worthless. His grants +are ingrafted on the public law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar +of innumerable ages. They are guarded by the sacred rules of +prescription, found in that full treasury of jurisprudence from which +the jejuneness and penury of our municipal law has by degrees been +enriched and strengthened. This prescription I had my share (a very full +share) in bringing to its perfection.[19] The Duke of Bedford will stand +as long as prescriptive law endures,--as long as the great, stable laws +of property, common to us with all civilized nations, are kept in their +integrity, and without the smallest intermixture of the laws, maxims, +principles, or precedents of the Grand Revolution. They are secure +against all changes but one. The whole Revolutionary system, institutes, +digest, code, novels, text, gloss, comment, are not only not the same, +but they are the very reverse, and the reverse fundamentally, of all the +laws on which civil life has hitherto been upheld in all the governments +of the world. The learned professors of the Rights of Man regard +prescription not as a title to bar all claim set up against old +possession, but they look on prescription as itself a bar against the +possessor and proprietor. They hold an immemorial possession to be no +more than a long continued and therefore an aggravated injustice. + +Such are _their_ ideas, such _their_ religion, and such _their_ law. But +as to _our_ country and _our_ race, as long as the well-compacted +structure of our Church and State, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of +that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress +at once and a temple,[20] shall stand inviolate on the brow of the +British Sion,--as long as the British monarchy, not more limited than +fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud Keep of +Windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double +belt of its kindred and coeval towers, as long as this awful structure +shall oversee and guard the subjected land,--so long the mounds and +dikes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have nothing to fear from all +the pickaxes of all the levellers of France. As long as our sovereign +lord the king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this +realm,--the triple cord which no man can break,--the solemn, sworn, +constitutional frank-pledge of this nation,--the firm guaranties of +each other's being and each other's rights,--the joint and several +securities, each in its place and order, for every kind and every +quality of property and of dignity,--as long as these ensure, so long +the Duke of Bedford is safe, and we are all safe together,--the high +from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity, the low from +the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen! +and so be it! and so it will be,-- + + Dum domus AEneae Capitoli immobile saxum + Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit. + +But if the rude inroad of Gallic tumult, with its sophistical rights of +man to falsify the account, and its sword as a make-weight to throw into +the scale, shall be introduced into our city by a misguided populace, +set on by proud great men, themselves blinded and intoxicated by a +frantic ambition, we shall all of us perish and be overwhelmed in a +common ruin. If a great storm blow on our coast, it will cast the whales +on the strand, as well as the periwinkles. His Grace will not survive +the poor grantee he despises,--no, not for a twelvemonth. If the great +look for safety in the services they render to this Gallic cause, it is +to be foolish even above the weight of privilege allowed to wealth. If +his Grace be one of these whom they endeavor to proselytize, he ought to +be aware of the character of the sect whose doctrines he is invited to +embrace. With them insurrection is the most sacred of revolutionary +duties to the state. Ingratitude to benefactors is the first of +revolutionary virtues. Ingratitude is, indeed, their four cardinal +virtues compacted and amalgamated into one; and he will find it in +everything that has happened since the commencement of the philosophic +Revolution to this hour. If he pleads the merit of having performed the +duty of insurrection against the order he lives in, (God forbid he ever +should!) the merit of others will be to perform the duty of insurrection +against him. If he pleads (again God forbid he should, and I do not +suspect he will) his ingratitude to the crown for its creation of his +family, others will plead their right and duty to pay him in kind. They +will laugh, indeed they will laugh, at his parchment and his wax. His +deeds will be drawn out with the rest of the lumber of his +evidence-room, and burnt to the tune of _Ca, ira_ in the courts of +Bedford (then Equality) House. + +Am I to blame, if I attempt to pay his Grace's hostile reproaches to me +with a friendly admonition to himself? Can I be blamed for pointing out +to him in what manner he is like to be affected, if the sect of the +cannibal philosophers of France should proselytize any considerable part +of this people, and, by their joint proselytizing arms, should conquer +that government to which his Grace does not seem to me to give all the +support his own security demands? Surely it is proper that he, and that +others like him, should know the true genius of this sect,--what their +opinions are,--what they have done, and to whom,--and what (if a +prognostic is to be formed from the dispositions and actions of men) it +is certain they will do hereafter. He ought to know that they have sworn +assistance, the only engagement they ever will keep, to all in this +country who bear a resemblance to themselves, and who think, as such, +that _the whole duty of man_ consists in destruction. They are a +misallied and disparaged branch of the House of Nimrod. They are the +Duke of Bedford's natural hunters; and he is their natural game. Because +he is not very profoundly reflecting, he sleeps in profound security: +they, on the contrary, are always vigilant, active, enterprising, and, +though far removed from any knowledge which makes men estimable or +useful, in all the instruments and resources of evil their leaders are +not meanly instructed or insufficiently furnished. In the French +Revolution everything is new, and, from want of preparation to meet so +unlooked-for an evil, everything is dangerous. Never before this time +was a set of literary men converted into a gang of robbers and +assassins; never before did a den of bravoes and banditti assume the +garb and tone of an academy of philosophers. + +Let me tell his Grace, that an union of such characters, monstrous as it +seems, is not made for producing despicable enemies. But if they are +formidable as foes, as friends they are dreadful indeed. The men of +property in France, confiding in a force which seemed to be irresistible +because it had never been tried, neglected to prepare for a conflict +with their enemies at their own weapons. They were found in such a +situation as the Mexicans were, when they were attacked by the dogs, the +cavalry, the iron, and the gunpowder of an handful of bearded men, whom +they did not know to exist in Nature. This is a comparison that some, I +think, have made; and it is just. In France they had their enemies +within their houses. They were even in the bosoms of many of them. But +they had not sagacity to discern their savage character. They seemed +tame, and even caressing. They had nothing but _douce humanite_ in their +mouth. They could not bear the punishment of the mildest laws on the +greatest criminals. The slightest severity of justice made their flesh +creep. The very idea that war existed in the world disturbed their +repose. Military glory was no more, with them, than a splendid infamy. +Hardly would they hear of self-defence, which they reduced within such +bounds as to leave it no defence at all. All this while they meditated +the confiscations and massacres we have seen. Had any one told these +unfortunate noblemen and gentlemen how and by whom the grand fabric of +the French monarchy under which they flourished would be subverted, they +would not have pitied him as a visionary, but would have turned from him +as what they call a _mauvais plaisant_. Yet we have seen what has +happened. The persons who have suffered from the cannibal philosophy of +France are so like the Duke of Bedford, that nothing but his Grace's +probably not speaking quite so good French could enable us to find out +any difference. A great many of them had as pompous titles as he, and +were of full as illustrious a race; some few of them had fortunes as +ample; several of them, without meaning the least disparagement to the +Duke of Bedford, were as wise, and as virtuous, and as valiant, and as +well educated, and as complete in all the lineaments of men of honor, as +he is; and to all this they had added the powerful outguard of a +military profession, which, in its nature, renders men somewhat more +cautious than those who have nothing to attend to but the lazy enjoyment +of undisturbed possessions. But security was their ruin. They are +dashed to pieces in the storm, and our shores are covered with the +wrecks. If they had been aware that such a thing might happen, such a +thing never could have happened. + +I assure his Grace, that, if I state to him the designs of his enemies +in a manner which may appear to him ludicrous and impossible, I tell him +nothing that has not exactly happened, point by point, but twenty-four +miles from our own shore. I assure him that the Frenchified faction, +more encouraged than others are warned by what has happened in France, +look at him and his landed possessions as an object at once of curiosity +and rapacity. He is made for them in every part of their double +character. As robbers, to them he is a noble booty; as speculatists, he +is a glorious subject for their experimental philosophy. He affords +matter for an extensive analysis in all the branches of their science, +geometrical, physical, civil, and political. These philosophers are +fanatics: independent of any interest, which, if it operated alone, +would make them much more tractable, they are carried with such an +headlong rage towards every desperate trial that they would sacrifice +the whole human race to the slightest of their experiments. I am better +able to enter into the character of this description of men than the +noble Duke can be. I have lived long and variously in the world. Without +any considerable pretensions to literature in myself, I have aspired to +the love of letters. I have lived for a great many years in habitudes +with those who professed them. I can form a tolerable estimate of what +is likely to happen from a character chiefly dependent for fame and +fortune on knowledge and talent, as well in its morbid and perverted +state as in that which is sound and natural. Naturally, men so formed +and finished are the first gifts of Providence to the world. But when +they have once thrown off the fear of God, which was in all ages too +often the case, and the fear of man, which is now the case, and when in +that state they come to understand one another, and to act in corps, a +more dreadful calamity cannot arise out of hell to scourge mankind. +Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred +metaphysician. It comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked spirit +than to the frailty and passion of a man. It is like that of the +Principle of Evil himself, incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, +defecated evil. It is no easy operation to eradicate humanity from the +human breast. What Shakspeare calls the "compunctious visitings of +Nature" will sometimes knock at their hearts, and protest against their +murderous speculations. But they have a means of compounding with their +nature. Their humanity is not dissolved; they only give it a long +prorogation. They are ready to declare that they do not think two +thousand years too long a period for the good that they pursue. It is +remarkable that they never see any way to their projected good but by +the road of some evil. Their imagination is not fatigued with the +contemplation of human suffering through the wild waste of centuries +added to centuries of misery and desolation. Their humanity is at their +horizon,--and, like the horizon, it always flies before them. The +geometricians and the chemists bring, the one from the dry bones of +their diagrams, and the other from the soot of their furnaces, +dispositions that make them worse than indifferent about those feelings +and habitudes which are the supports of the moral world. Ambition is +come upon them suddenly; they are intoxicated with it, and it has +rendered them fearless of the danger which may from thence arise to +others or to themselves. These philosophers consider men in their +experiments no more than they do mice in an air-pump or in a recipient +of mephitic gas. Whatever his Grace may think of himself, they look upon +him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they +do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal that has been +long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, +velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon two legs or +upon four. + +His Grace's landed possessions are irresistibly inviting to an agrarian +experiment. They are a downright insult upon the rights of man. They are +more extensive than the territory of many of the Grecian republics; and +they are without comparison more fertile than most of them. There are +now republics in Italy, in Germany, and in Switzerland, which do not +possess anything like so fair and ample a domain. There is scope for +seven philosophers to proceed in their analytical experiments upon +Harrington's seven different forms of republics, in the acres of this +one Duke. Hitherto they have been wholly unproductive to +speculation,--fitted for nothing but to fatten bullocks, and to produce +grain for beer, still more to stupefy the dull English understanding. +Abbe Sieyes has whole nests of pigeon-holes full of constitutions +ready-made, ticketed, sorted, and numbered, suited to every season and +every fancy: some with the top of the pattern at the bottom, and some +with the bottom at the top; some plain, some flowered; some +distinguished for their simplicity, others for their complexity; some of +blood color, some of _boue de Paris_; some with directories, others +without a direction; some with councils of elders and councils of +youngsters, some without any council at all; some where the electors +choose the representatives, others where the representatives choose the +electors; some in long coats, and some in short cloaks; some with +pantaloons, some without breeches; some with five-shilling +qualifications, some totally unqualified. So that no +constitution-fancier may go unsuited from his shop, provided he loves a +pattern of pillage, oppression, arbitrary imprisonment, confiscation, +exile, revolutionary judgment, and legalized premeditated murder, in any +shapes into which they can be put. What a pity it is that the progress +of experimental philosophy should be checked by his Grace's monopoly! +Such are their sentiments, I assure him; such is their language, when +they dare to speak; and such are their proceedings, when they have the +means to act. + +Their geographers and geometricians have been some time out of practice. +It is some time since they have divided their own country into squares. +That figure has lost the charms of its novelty. They want new lands for +new trials. It is not only the geometricians of the Republic that find +him a good subject: the chemists have bespoke him, after the +geometricians have done with him. As the first set have an eye on his +Grace's lands, the chemists are not less taken with his buildings. They +consider mortar as a very anti-revolutionary invention, in its present +state, but, properly employed, an admirable material for overturning all +establishments. They have found that the gunpowder of _ruins_ is far +the fittest for making other _ruins_, and so _ad infinitum_. They have +calculated what quantity of matter convertible into nitre is to be found +in Bedford House, in Woburn Abbey, and in what his Grace and his +trustees have still suffered to stand of that foolish royalist, Inigo +Jones, in Covent Garden. Churches, play-houses, coffeehouses, all alike, +are destined to be mingled, and equalized, and blended into one common +rubbish,--and, well sifted, and lixiviated, to crystallize into true, +democratic, explosive, insurrectionary nitre. Their Academy _del +Cimento_, (_per antiphrasin_,) with Morveau and Hassenfratz at its head, +have computed that the brave _sans-culottes_ may make war on all the +aristocracy of Europe for a twelvemonth out of the rubbish of the Duke +of Bedford's buildings.[21] + +While the Morveaux and Priestleys are proceeding with these experiments +upon the Duke of Bedford's houses, the Sieyes, and the rest of the +analytical legislators and constitution-venders, are quite as busy in +their trade of decomposing organization, in forming his Grace's vassals +into primary assemblies, national guards, first, second, and third +requisitioners, committees of research, conductors of the travelling +guillotine, judges of revolutionary tribunals, legislative hangmen, +supervisors of domiciliary visitation, exactors of forced loans, and +assessors of the maximum. + +The din of all this smithery may some time or other possibly wake this +noble Duke, and push him to an endeavor to save some little matter from +their experimental philosophy. If he pleads his grants from the crown, +he is ruined at the outset. If he pleads he has received them from the +pillage of superstitious corporations, this indeed will stagger them a +little, because they are enemies to all corporations and to all +religion. However, they will soon recover themselves, and will tell his +Grace, or his learned council, that all such property belongs to the +_nation_,--and that it would be more wise for him, if he wishes to live +the natural term of a _citizen_, (that is, according to Condorcet's +calculation, six months on an average,) not to pass for an usurper upon +the national property. This is what the _serjeants_-at-law of the rights +of man will say to the puny _apprentices_ of the common law of England. + +Is the genius of philosophy not yet known? You may as well think the +garden of the Tuileries was well protected with the cords of ribbon +insultingly stretched by the National Assembly to keep the sovereign +_canaille_ from intruding on the retirement of the poor King of the +French as that such flimsy cobwebs will stand between the savages of the +Revolution and their natural prey. Deep philosophers are no triflers; +brave _sans-culottes_ are no formalists. They will no more regard a +Marquis of Tavistock than an Abbot of Tavistock; the Lord of Woburn will +not be more respectable in their eyes than the Prior of Woburn; they +will make no difference between the superior of a Covent Garden of nuns +and of a Covent Garden of another description. They will not care a rush +whether his coat is long or short,--whether the color be purple, or blue +and buff. They will not trouble _their_ heads with what part of _his_ +head his hair is out from; and they will look with equal respect on a +tonsure and a crop. Their only question will be that of their Legendre, +or some oilier of their legislative butchers: How he cuts up; how he +tallows in the caul or on the kidneys. + +Is it not a singular phenomenon, that, whilst the _sans-culotte_ +carcass-butchers and the philosophers of the shambles are pricking their +dotted lines upon his hide, and, like the print of the poor ox that we +see in the shop-windows at Charing Cross, alive as he is, and thinking +no harm in the world, he is divided into rumps, and sirloins, and +briskets, and into all sorts of pieces for roasting, boiling, and +stewing, that, all the while they are measuring _him_, his Grace is +measuring _me_,--is invidiously comparing the bounty of the crown with +the deserts of the defender of his order, and in the same moment fawning +on those who have the knife half out of the sheath? Poor innocent! + + "Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, + And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." + +No man lives too long who lives to do with spirit and suffer with +resignation what Providence pleases to command or inflict; but, indeed, +they are sharp incommodities which beset old age. It was but the other +day, that, on putting in order some things which had been brought here, +on my taking leave of London forever, I looked over a number of fine +portraits, most of them of persons now dead, but whose society, in my +better days, made this a proud and happy place. Amongst those was the +picture of Lord Keppel. It was painted by an artist worthy of the +subject, the excellent friend of that excellent man from their earliest +youth, and a common friend of us both, with whom we lived for many years +without a moment of coldness, of peevishness, of jealousy, or of jar, to +the day of our final separation. + +I ever looked on Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his +age, and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. He was much in my +heart, and I believe I was in his to the very last beat. It was after +his trial at Portsmouth that he gave me this picture. With what zeal and +anxious affection I attended him through that his agony of glory,--what +part my son, in the early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue, and the +pious passion with which he attached himself to all my +connections,--with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in +courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, I believe he felt, +just as I should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. I +partook, indeed, of this honor with several of the first and best and +ablest in the kingdom, but I was behindhand with none of them; and I am +sure, that, if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total +annihilation of every trace of honor and virtue in it, things had taken +a different turn from what they did. I should have attended him to the +quarter-deck with no less good-will and more pride, though with far +other feelings, than I partook of the general flow of national joy that +attended the justice that was done to his virtue. + +Pardon, my Lord, the feeble garrulity of age, which loves to diffuse +itself in discourse of the departed great. At my years we live in +retrospect alone; and, wholly unfitted for the society of vigorous life, +we enjoy, the best balm to all wounds, the consolation of friendship, in +those only whom we have lost forever. Feeling the loss of Lord Keppel at +all times, at no time did I feel it so much as on the first day when I +was attacked in the House of Lords. + +Had he lived, that reverend form would have risen in its place, and, +with a mild, parental reprehension to his nephew, the Duke of Bedford, +he would have told him that the favor of that gracious prince who had +honored his virtues with the government of the navy of Great Britain, +and with a seat in the hereditary great council of his kingdom, was not +undeservedly shown to the friend of the best portion of his life, and +his faithful companion and counsellor under his rudest trials. He would +have told him, that, to whomever else these reproaches might be +becoming, they were not decorous in his near kindred. He would have told +him, that, when men in that rank lose decorum, they lose everything. + +On that day I had a loss in Lord Keppel. But the public loss of him in +this awful crisis!--I speak from much knowledge of the person: he never +would have listened to any compromise with the rabble rout of this +_sans-culotterie_ of France. His goodness of heart, his reason, his +taste, his public duty, his principles, his prejudices, would have +repelled him forever from all connection with that horrid medley of +madness, vice, impiety, and crime. + +Lord Keppel had two countries: one of descent, and one of birth. Their +interest and their glory are the same; and his mind was capacious of +both. His family was noble, and it was Dutch: that is, he was of the +oldest and purest nobility that Europe can boast, among a people +renowned above all others for love of their native land. Though it was +never shown in insult to any human being, Lord Keppel was something +high. It was a wild stock of pride, on which the tenderest of all hearts +had grafted the milder virtues. He valued ancient nobility; and he was +not disinclined to augment it with new honors. He valued the old +nobility and the new, not as an excuse for inglorious sloth, but as an +incitement to virtuous activity. He considered it as a sort of cure for +selfishness and a narrow mind,--conceiving that a man born in an +elevated place in himself was nothing, but everything in what went +before and what was to come after him. Without much speculation, but by +the sure instinct of ingenuous feelings, and by the dictates of plain, +unsophisticated, natural understanding, he felt that no great +commonwealth could by any possibility long subsist without a body of +some kind or other of nobility decorated with honor and fortified by +privilege. This nobility forms the chain that connects the ages of a +nation, which otherwise (with Mr. Paine) would soon be taught that no +one generation can bind another. He felt that no political fabric could +be well made, without some such order of things as might, through a +series of time, afford a rational hope of securing unity, coherence, +consistency, and stability to the state. He felt that nothing else can +protect it against the levity of courts and the greater levity of the +multitude; that to talk of hereditary monarchy, without anything else of +hereditary reverence in the commonwealth, was a low-minded absurdity, +fit only for those detestable "fools aspiring to be knaves" who began to +forge in 1789 the false money of the French Constitution; that it is one +fatal objection to all _new_ fancied and _new fabricated_ republics, +(among a people who, once possessing such an advantage, have wickedly +and insolently rejected it,) that the _prejudice_ of an old nobility is +a thing that _cannot_ be made. It may be improved, it may be corrected, +it may be replenished; men may be taken from it or aggregated to it; but +_the thing itself_ is matter of _inveterate_ opinion, and therefore +_cannot_ be matter of mere positive institution. He felt that this +nobility, in fact, does not exist in wrong of other orders of the state, +but by them, and for them. + +I knew the man I speak of: and if we can divine the future out of what +we collect from the past, no person living would look with more scorn +and horror on the impious parricide committed on all their ancestry, and +on the desperate attainder passed on all their posterity, by the +Orleans, and the Rochefoucaults, and the Fayettes, and the Vicomtes de +Noailles, and the false Perigords, and the long _et cetera_ of the +perfidious _sans-culottes_ of the court, who, like demoniacs possessed +with a spirit of fallen pride and inverted ambition, abdicated their +dignities, disowned their families, betrayed the most sacred of all +trusts, and, by breaking to pieces a great link of society and all the +cramps and holdings of the state, brought eternal confusion and +desolation on their country. For the fate of the miscreant parricides +themselves he would have had no pity. Compassion for the myriads of men, +of whom the world was not worthy, who by their means have perished in +prisons or on scaffolds, or are pining in beggary and exile, would leave +no room in his, or in any well-formed mind, for any such sensation. We +are not made at once to pity the oppressor and the oppressed. + +Looking to his Batavian descent, how could he bear to behold his +kindred, the descendants of the brave nobility of Holland, whose blood, +prodigally poured out, had, more than all the canals, meres, and +inundations of their country, protected their independence, to behold +them bowed in the basest servitude to the basest and vilest of the human +race,--in servitude to those who in no respect were superior in dignity +or could aspire to a better place than that of hangmen to the tyrants to +whose sceptred pride they had opposed an elevation of soul that +surmounted and overpowered the loftiness of Castile, the haughtiness of +Austria, and the overbearing arrogance of France? + +Could he with patience bear that the children of that nobility who would +have deluged their country and given it to the sea rather than submit to +Louis the Fourteenth, who was then in his meridian glory, when his arms +were conducted by the Turennes, by the Luxembourgs, by the Boufflers, +when his councils were directed by the Colberts and the Louvois, when +his tribunals were filled by the Lamoignons and the D'Aguesseaus,--that +these should be given up to the cruel sport of the Pichegrus, the +Jourdans, the Santerres, under the Rolands, and Brissots, and Gorsas, +and Robespierres, the Reubells, the Carnots, and Talliens, and Dantons, +and the whole tribe of regicides, robbers, and revolutionary judges, +that from the rotten carcass of their own murdered country have poured +out innumerable swarms of the lowest and at once the most destructive of +the classes of animated Nature, which like columns of locusts have laid +waste the fairest part of the world? + +Would Keppel have borne to see the ruin of the virtuous patricians, that +happy union of the noble and the burgher, who with signal prudence and +integrity had long governed the cities of the confederate republic, the +cherishing fathers of their country, who, denying commerce to +themselves, made it flourish in a manner unexampled under their +protection? Could Keppel have borne that a vile faction should totally +destroy this harmonious construction, in favor of a robbing democracy +founded on the spurious rights of man? + +He was no great clerk, but he was perfectly well versed in the interests +of Europe, and he could not have heard with patience that the country of +Grotius, the cradle of the law of nations, and one of the richest +repositories of all law, should be taught a new code by the ignorant +flippancy of Thomas Paine, the presumptuous foppery of La Fayette, with +his stolen rights of man in his hand, the wild, profligate intrigue and +turbulency of Marat, and the impious sophistry of Condorcet, in his +insolent addresses to the Batavian Republic. + +Could Keppel, who idolized the House of Nassau, who was himself given to +England along with the blessings of the British and Dutch Revolutions, +with Revolutions of stability, with Revolutions which consolidated and +married the liberties and the interests of the two nations +forever,--could he see the fountain of British liberty itself in +servitude to France? Could he see with patience a Prince of Orange +expelled, as a sort of diminutive despot, with every kind of contumely, +from the country which that family of deliverers had so often rescued +from slavery, and obliged to live in exile in another country, which +owes its liberty to his house? + +Would Keppel have heard with patience that the conduct to be held on +such occasions was to become short by the knees to the faction of the +homicides, to entreat them quietly to retire? or, if the fortune of war +should drive them from their first wicked and unprovoked invasion, that +no security should be taken, no arrangement made, no barrier formed, no +alliance entered into for the security of that which under a foreign +name is the most precious part of England? What would he have said, if +it was even proposed that the Austrian Netherlands (which ought to be a +barrier to Holland, and the tie of an alliance to protect her against +any species of rule that might be erected or even be restored in France) +should be formed into a republic under her influence and dependent upon +her power? + +But above all, what would he have said, if he had heard it made a matter +of accusation against me, by his nephew, the Duke of Bedford, that I was +the author of the war? Had I a mind to keep that high distinction to +myself, (as from pride I might, but from justice I dare not,) he would +have snatched his share of it from my hand, and held it with the grasp +of a dying convulsion to his end. + +It would be a most arrogant presumption in me to assume to myself the +glory of what belongs to his Majesty, and to his ministers, and to his +Parliament, and to the far greater majority of his faithful people: but +had I stood alone to counsel, and that all were determined to be guided +by my advice, and to follow it implicitly, then I should have been the +sole author of a war. But it should have been a war on my ideas and my +principles. However, let his Grace think as he may of my demerits with +regard to the war with Regicide, he will find my guilt confined to that +alone. He never shall, with the smallest color of reason, accuse me of +being the author of a peace with Regicide.--But that is high matter, and +ought not to be mixed with anything of so little moment as what may +belong to me, or even to the Duke of Bedford. + +I have the honor to be, &c. + +EDMUND BURKE. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] + + Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec saevior ulla + Pestis et ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit undis. + Virginei volucrum vultus, foedissima ventris + Proluvies, uncaeque manus, et pallida semper + Ora fame. + +Here the poet breaks the line, because he (and that _he_ is Virgil) had +not verse or language to describe that monster even as he had conceived +her. Had he lived to our time, he would have been more overpowered with +the reality than he was with the imagination. Virgil only knew the +horror of the times before him. Had he lived to see the revolutionists +and constitutionalists of France, he would have had more horrid and +disgusting features of his harpies to describe, and more frequent +failures in the attempt to describe them. + +[16] London, J. Dodsley, 1792, 3 vols. 4to.--Vol. II. pp. 324-336, in +the present edition. + +[17] See the history of the melancholy catastrophe of the Duke of +Buckingham. Temp. Hen. VIII. + +[18] At si non aliam venturo fata Neroni, etc. + +[19] Sir George Savile's act, called The _Nullum Tempus_ Act. + +[20] "Templum in modum arcis."--TACITUS, of the temple of Jerusalem. + +[21] There is nothing on which the leaders of the Republic one and +indivisible value themselves more than on the chemical operations by +which; through science, they convert the pride of aristocracy to an +instrument of its own destruction,--on the operations by which they +reduce the magnificent ancient country-seats of the nobility, decorated +with the _feudal_ titles of Duke, Marquis, or Earl, into magazines of +what they call _revolutionary_ gunpowder. They tell us, that hitherto +things "had not yet been properly and in a _revolutionary_ manner +explored,"--"The strong _chateaus_, those _feudal_ fortresses, that +_were ordered to be demolished_ attracted next the attention of your +committee. _Nature_ there had _secretly_ regained her _rights_, and had +produced saltpetre, for the _purpose_, as it should seem, _of +facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of +destruction_. From these _ruins_, which _still frown_ on the liberties +of the Republic, we have extracted the means of producing good; and +those piles which have hitherto glutted the _pride of despots_, and +covered the plots of La Vendee, will soon furnish wherewithal to tame +the traitors and to overwhelm the disaffected,"--"The _rebellious +cities_, also, have afforded a large quantity of saltpetre. _Commune +Affranchie_" (that is, the noble city of Lyons, reduced in many parts to +an heap of ruins) "and Toulon will pay a _second_ tribute to our +artillery."--_Report, 1st February_, 1794. + + + + +THREE LETTERS + +ADDRESSED TO + +A MEMBER OF THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT, + +ON THE + +PROPOSALS FOR PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE. + +1796-7. + + + + +LETTER I. + +ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE. + + +My Dear Sir,--Our last conversation, though not in the tone of absolute +despondency, was far from cheerful. We could not easily account for some +unpleasant appearances. They were represented to us as indicating the +state of the popular mind; and they were not at all what we should have +expected from our old ideas even of the faults and vices of the English +character. The disastrous events which have followed one upon another in +a long, unbroken, funereal train, moving in a procession that seemed to +have no end,--these were not the principal causes of our dejection. We +feared more from what threatened to fail within than what menaced to +oppress us from abroad. To a people who have once been proud and great, +and great because they were proud, a change in the national spirit is +the most terrible of all revolutions. + +I shall not live to behold the unravelling of the intricate plot which +saddens and perplexes the awful drama of Providence now acting on the +moral theatre of the world. Whether for thought or for action, I am at +the end of my career. You are in the middle of yours. In what part of +its orbit the nation with which we are carried along moves at this +instant it is not easy to conjecture. It may, perhaps, be far advanced +in its aphelion,--but when to return? + +Not to lose ourselves in the infinite void of the conjectural world, our +business is with what is likely to be affected, for the better or the +worse, by the wisdom or weakness of our plans. In all speculations upon +men and human affairs, it is of no small moment to distinguish things of +accident from permanent causes, and from effects that cannot be altered. +It is not every irregularity in our movement that is a total deviation +from our course. I am not quite of the mind of those speculators who +seem assured that necessarily, and by the constitution of things, all +states have the same periods of infancy, manhood, and decrepitude that +are found in the individuals who compose them. Parallels of this sort +rather furnish similitudes to illustrate or to adorn than supply +analogies from whence to reason. The objects which are attempted to be +forced into an analogy are not found in the same classes of existence. +Individuals are physical beings, subject to laws universal and +invariable. The immediate cause acting in these laws may be obscure: the +general results are subjects of certain calculation. But commonwealths +are not physical, but moral essences. They are artificial combinations, +and, in their proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of +the human mind. We are not yet acquainted with the laws which +necessarily influence the stability of that kind of work made by that +kind of agent. There is not in the physical order (with which they do +not appear to hold any assignable connection) a distinct cause by which +any of those fabrics must necessarily grow, flourish, or decay; nor, in +my opinion, does the moral world produce anything more determinate on +that subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal, indeed, and +ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt +whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be +so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which +necessarily affect the fortune of a state. I am far from denying the +operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain, and much +more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes +that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community. + +It is often impossible, in these political inquiries, to find any +proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign +and their known operation. We are therefore obliged to deliver up that +operation to mere chance, or, more piously, (perhaps more rationally,) +to the occasional interposition and irresistible hand of the Great +Disposer. We have seen states of considerable duration, which for ages +have remained nearly as they have begun, and could hardly be said to ebb +or flow. Some appear to have spent their vigor at their commencement. +Some have blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. +The meridian of some has been the most splendid. Others, and they the +greatest number, have fluctuated, and experienced at different periods +of their existence a great variety of fortune. At the very moment when +some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace and +disaster, they have suddenly emerged. They have begun a new course and +opened a new reckoning, and even in the depths of their calamity and on +the very ruins of their country have laid the foundations of a towering +and durable greatness. All this has happened without any apparent +previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on their +distress. The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his +retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a whole +nation. A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn, have +changed the face of fortune, and almost of Nature. + +Such, and often influenced by such causes, has commonly been the fate of +monarchies of long duration. They have their ebbs and their flows. This +has been eminently the fate of the monarchy of France. There have been +times in which no power has ever been brought so low. Few have ever +flourished in greater glory. By turns elevated and depressed, that power +had been, on the whole, rather on the increase; and it continued not +only powerful, but formidable, to the hour of the total ruin of the +monarchy. This fall of the monarchy was far from being preceded by any +exterior symptoms of decline. The interior were not visible to every +eye; and a thousand accidents might have prevented the operation of what +the most clear-sighted were not able to discern nor the most provident +to divine. A very little time before its dreadful catastrophe, there was +a kind of exterior splendor in the situation of the crown, which usually +adds to government strength and authority at home. The crown seemed then +to have obtained some of the most splendid objects of state ambition. +None of the Continental powers of Europe were the enemies of France. +They were all either tacitly disposed to her or publicly connected with +her; and in those who kept the most aloof there was little appearance of +jealousy,--of animosity there was no appearance at all. The British +nation, her great preponderating rival, she had humbled, to all +appearance she had weakened, certainly had endangered, by cutting off a +very large and by far the most growing part of her empire. In that its +acme of human prosperity and greatness, in the high and palmy state of +the monarchy of France, it fell to the ground without a struggle. It +fell without any of those vices in the monarch which have sometimes been +the causes of the fall of kingdoms, but which existed, without any +visible effect on the state, in the highest degree in many other +princes, and, far from destroying their power, had only left some slight +stains on their character. The financial difficulties were only pretexts +and instruments of those who accomplished the ruin of that monarchy; +they were not the causes of it. + +Deprived of the old government, deprived in a manner of all government, +France, fallen as a monarchy, to common speculators might have appeared +more likely to be an object of pity or insult, according to the +disposition of the circumjacent powers, than to be the scourge and +terror of them all: but out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in +France has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre, in a far more +terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination +and subdued the fortitude of man. Going straight forward to its end, +unappalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all common maxims +and all common means, that hideous phantom overpowered those who could +not believe it was possible she could at all exist, except on the +principles which habit rather than Nature had persuaded them were +necessary to their own particular welfare and to their own ordinary +modes of action. But the constitution of any political being, as well as +that of any physical being, ought to be known, before one can venture to +say what is fit for its conservation, or what is the proper means of its +power. The poison of other states is the food of the new Republic. That +bankruptcy, the very apprehension of which is one of the causes assigned +for the fall of the monarchy, was the capital on which she opened her +traffic with the world. + +The Republic of Regicide, with an annihilated revenue, with defaced +manufactures, with a ruined commerce, with an uncultivated and +half-depopulated country, with a discontented, distressed, enslaved, and +famished people, passing, with a rapid, eccentric, incalculable course, +from the wildest anarchy to the sternest despotism, has actually +conquered the finest parts of Europe, has distressed, disunited, +deranged, and broke to pieces all the rest, and so subdued the minds of +the rulers in every nation, that hardly any resource presents itself to +them, except that of entitling themselves to a contemptuous mercy by a +display of their imbecility and meanness. Even in their greatest +military efforts, and the greatest display of their fortitude, they seem +not to hope, they do not even appear to wish, the extinction of what +subsists to their certain ruin. Their ambition is only to be admitted to +a more favored class in the order of servitude under that domineering +power. + +This seems the temper of the day. At first the French force was too much +despised. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconsiderate courage has given +way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that, through the medium of +deliberate, sober apprehension, we may arrive at steady fortitude. Who +knows whether indignation may not succeed to terror, and the revival of +high sentiment, spurning away the delusion of a safety purchased at the +expense of glory, may not yet drive us to that generous despair which +has often subdued distempers in the state for which no remedy could be +found in the wisest councils? + +Other great states having been without any regular, certain course of +elevation or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may fluctuate +also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune, +may have its changes. We are therefore never authorized to abandon our +country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. There +is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that +no others can spring up. Whilst our heart is whole, it will find means, +or make them. The heart of the citizen is a perennial spring of energy +to the state. Because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume +that it will cease instantly to beat. The public must never be regarded +as incurable. I remember, in the beginning of what has lately been +called the Seven Years' War, that an eloquent writer and ingenious +speculator, Dr. Brown, upon some reverses which happened in the +beginning of that war, published an elaborate philosophical discourse to +prove that the distinguishing features of the people of England had been +totally changed, and that a frivolous effeminacy was become the national +character. Nothing could be more popular than that work. It was thought +a great consolation to us, the light people of this country, (who were +and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate,) that we had +found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not +be more pleased with his leading discovery. But whilst, in that +splenetic mood, we amused ourselves in a sour, critical speculation, of +which we were ourselves the objects, and in which every man lost his +particular sense of the public disgrace in the epidemic nature of the +distemper,--whilst, as in the Alps, goitre kept goitre in +countenance,--whilst we were thus abandoning ourselves to a direct +confession of our inferiority to France, and whilst many, very many, +were ready to act upon a sense of that inferiority,--a few months +effected a total change in our variable minds. We emerged from the gulf +of that speculative despondency, and wore buoyed up to the highest point +of practical vigor. Never did the masculine spirit of England display +itself with more energy, nor ever did its genius soar with a prouder +preeminence over France, than at the time when frivolity and effeminacy +had been at least tacitly acknowledged as their national character by +the good people of this kingdom. + +For one, (if they be properly treated,) I despair neither of the public +fortune nor of the public mind. There is much to be done, undoubtedly, +and much to be retrieved. We must walk in new ways, or we can never +encounter our enemy in his devious march. We are not at an end of our +struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive ourselves: we are at the +beginning of great troubles. I readily acknowledge that the state of +public affairs is infinitely more unpromising than at the period I have +just now alluded to; and the position of all the powers of Europe, in +relation to us, and in relation to each other, is more intricate and +critical beyond all comparison. Difficult indeed is our situation. In +all situations of difficulty, men will be influenced in the part they +take, not only by the reason of the case, but by the peculiar turn of +their own character. The same ways to safety do not present themselves +to all men, nor to the same men in different tempers. There is a +courageous wisdom: there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result, +not of caution, but of fear. Under misfortunes, it often happens that +the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of +the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future +danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so +much as fully seen. The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. An +abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant admiration of the enemy, +present us with no hope but in a compromise with his pride by a +submission to his will. This short plan of policy is the only counsel +which will obtain a hearing. We plunge into a dark gulf with all the +rash precipitation of fear. The nature of courage is, without a +question, to be conversant with danger: but in the palpable night of +their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is the +danger which by a sure instinct calls out the courage to resist it, but +that it is the courage which produces the danger. They therefore seek +for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a +temporizing meanness as the only source of safety. + +The rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact, never +universal. I do not deny, that, in small, truckling states, a timely +compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means; of +drawling out their puny existence; but a great state is too much +envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, +it must be respected. Power and eminence and consideration are things +not to be begged; they must be commanded: and they who supplicate for +mercy from others can never hope for justice through themselves. What +justice they are to obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his +character; and that they ought well to know before they implicitly +confide. + +Much controversy there has been in Parliament, and not a little amongst +us out of doors, about the instrumental means of this nation towards the +maintenance of her dignity and the assertion of her rights. On the most +elaborate and correct detail of facts, the result seems to be, that at +no time has the wealth and power of Great Britain been so considerable +as it is at this very perilous moment. We have a, vast interest to +preserve, and we possess great means of preserving it: but it is to be +remembered that the artificer may be incumbered by his tools, and that +resources may be among impediments. If wealth is the obedient and +laborious slave of virtue and of public honor, then wealth is in its +place and has its use; but if this order is changed, and honor is to be +sacrificed to the conservation of riches, riches, which have neither +eyes nor hands, nor anything truly vital in them, cannot long survive +the being of their vivifying powers, their legitimate masters, and their +potent protectors. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free: +if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. We are bought by the +enemy with the treasure from our own coffers. Too great a sense of the +value of a subordinate interest may be the very source of its danger, as +well as the certain ruin of interests of a superior order. Often has a +man lost his all because he would not submit to hazard all in defending +it. A display of our wealth before robbers is not the way to restrain +their boldness or to lessen their rapacity. This display is made, I +know, to persuade the people of England that thereby we shall awe the +enemy and improve the terms of our capitulation: it is made, not that we +should fight with more animation, but that we should supplicate with +better hopes. We are mistaken. We have an enemy to deal with who never +regarded our contest as a measuring and weighing of purses. He is the +Gaul that puts his _sword_ into the scale. He is more tempted with our +wealth as booty than terrified with it as power. But let us be rich or +poor, let us be either in what proportion we may, Nature is false or +this is true, that, where the essential public force (of which money is +but a part) is in any degree upon a par in a conflict between nations, +that state which is resolved to hazard its existence rather than to +abandon its objects must have an infinite advantage over that which is +resolved to yield rather than to carry its resistance beyond a certain +point. Humanly speaking, that people which bounds its efforts only with +its being must give the law to that nation which will not push its +opposition beyond its convenience. + +If we look to nothing but our domestic condition, the state of the +nation is full even to plethora; but if we imagine that this country can +long maintain its blood and its food as disjoined from the community of +mankind, such an opinion does not deserve refutation as absurd, but pity +as insane. + +I do not know that such an improvident and stupid selfishness deserves +the discussion which perhaps I may bestow upon it hereafter. We cannot +arrange with our enemy, in the present conjuncture, without abandoning +the interest of mankind. If we look only to our own petty _peculium_ in +the war, we have had some advantages,--advantages ambiguous in their +nature, and dearly bought. We have not in the slightest degree impaired +the strength of the common enemy in any one of those points in which his +particular force consists,--at the same time that new enemies to +ourselves, new allies to the Regicide Republic, have been made out of +the wrecks and fragments of the general confederacy. So far as to the +selfish part. As composing a part of the community of Europe, and +interested in its fate, it is not easy to conceive a state of things +more doubtful and perplexing. When Louis the Fourteenth had made himself +master of one of the largest and most important provinces of +Spain,--when he had in a manner overrun Lombardy, and was thundering at +the gates of Turin,--when he had mastered almost all Germany on this +side the Rhine,--when he was on the point of ruining the august fabric +of the Empire,--when, with the Elector of Bavaria in his alliance, +hardly anything interposed between him and Vienna,--when the Turk hung +with a mighty force over the Empire on the other side,--I do not know +that in the beginning of 1704 (that is, in the third year of the +renovated war with Louis the Fourteenth) the state of Europe was so +truly alarming. To England it certainly was not. Holland (and Holland is +a matter to England of value inestimable) was then powerful, was then +independent, and, though greatly endangered, was then full of energy and +spirit. But the great resource of Europe was in England: not in a sort +of England detached from the rest of the world, and amusing herself +with the puppet-show of a naval power, (it can be no better, whilst all +the sources of that power, and of every sort of power, are precarious,) +but in that sort of England who considered herself as embodied with +Europe, but in that sort of England who, sympathetic with the adversity +or the happiness of mankind, felt that nothing in human affairs was +foreign to her. We may consider it as a sure axiom, that, as, on the one +hand, no confederacy of the least effect or duration can exist against +France, of which England is not only a part, but the head, so neither +can England pretend to cope with France but as connected with the body +of Christendom. + +Our account of the war, _as a war of communion_, to the very point in +which we began to throw out lures, oglings, and glances for peace, was a +war of disaster, and of little else. The independent advantages obtained +by us at the beginning of the war, and which were made at the expense of +that common cause, if they deceive us about our largest and our surest +interest, are to be reckoned amongst our heaviest losses. + +The Allies, and Great Britain amongst the rest, (and perhaps amongst the +foremost,) have been miserably deluded by this great, fundamental error: +that it was in our power to make peace with this monster of a state, +whenever we chose to forget the crimes that made it great and the +designs that made it formidable. People imagined that their ceasing to +resist was the sure way to be secure. This "pale cast of thought" +sicklied over all their enterprises, and turned all their politics awry. +They could not, or rather they would not, read, in the most unequivocal +declarations of the enemy, and in his uniform conduct, that more safety +was to be found in the most arduous war than in the friendship of that +kind of being. Its hostile amity can be obtained on no terms that do not +imply an inability hereafter to resist its designs. This great, prolific +error (I mean that peace was always in our power) has been the cause +that rendered the Allies indifferent about the _direction_ of the war, +and persuaded them that they might always risk a choice and even a +change in its objects. They seldom improved any advantage,--hoping that +the enemy, affected by it, would make a proffer of peace. Hence it was +that all their early victories have been followed almost immediately +with the usual effects of a defeat, whilst all the advantages obtained +by the Regicides have been followed by the consequences that were +natural. The discomfitures which the Republic of Assassins has suffered +have uniformly called forth new exertions, which not only repaired old +losses, but prepared new conquests. The losses of the Allies, on the +contrary, (no provision having been made on the speculation of such an +event,) have been followed by desertion, by dismay, by disunion, by a +dereliction of their policy, by a flight from their principles, by an +admiration of the enemy, by mutual accusations, by a distrust in every +member of the Alliance of its fellow, of its cause, its power, and its +courage. + +Great difficulties in consequence of our erroneous policy, as I have +said, press upon every side of us. Far from desiring to conceal or even +to palliate the evil in the representation, I wish to lay it down as my +foundation, that never greater existed. In a moment when sudden panic is +apprehended, it may be wise for a while to conceal some great public +disaster, or to reveal it by degrees, until the minds of the people have +time to be re-collected, that their understanding may have leisure to +rally, and that more steady councils may prevent their doing something +desperate under the first impressions of rage or terror. But with regard +to a _general_ state of things, growing out of events and causes already +known in the gross, there is no piety in the fraud that covers its true +nature; because nothing but erroneous resolutions can be the result of +false representations. Those measures, which in common distress might be +available, in greater are no better than playing with the evil. That the +effort may bear a proportion to the exigence, it is fit it should be +known,--known in its quality, in its extent, and in all the +circumstances which attend it. Great reverses of fortune there have +been, and great embarrassments in council: a principled regicide enemy +possessed of the most important part of Europe, and struggling for the +rest; within ourselves a total relaxation of all authority, whilst a cry +is raised against it, as if it were the most ferocious of all despotism. +A worse phenomenon: our government disowned by the most efficient member +of its tribunals,--ill-supported by any of their constituent parts,--and +the highest tribunal of all (from causes not for our present purpose to +examine) deprived of all that dignity and all that efficiency which +might enforce, or regulate, or, if the case required it, might supply +the want of every other court. Public prosecutions are become little +better than schools for treason,--of no use but to improve the dexterity +of criminals in the mystery of evasion, or to show with what complete +impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth, with what safety +assassins may attempt its awful head. Everything is secure, except what +the laws have made sacred; everything is tameness and languor that is +not fury and faction. Whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre +prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the body +of the state, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by the very +aspect of the disease.[22] The doctor of the Constitution, pretending to +underrate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own +operation. He doubts and questions the salutary, but critical, terrors +of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit even from his +defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity. He praises the +moderation of the laws, as in his hands he sees them baffled and +despised. Is all this because in our day the statutes of the kingdom are +not engrossed in as firm a character and imprinted in as black and +legible a type as ever? No! the law is a clear, but it is a dead letter. +Dead and putrid, it is insufficient to save the state, but potent to +infect and to kill. Living law, full of reason, and of equity and +justice, (as it is, or it should not exist,) ought to be severe, and +awful too,--or the words of menace, whether written on the parchment +roll of England or cut into the brazen tablet of Borne, will excite +nothing but contempt. How comes it that in all the state prosecutions of +magnitude, from the Revolution to within these two or three years, the +crown has scarcely ever retired disgraced and defeated from its courts? +Whence this alarming change? By a connection easily felt, and not +impossible to be traced to its cause, all the parts of the state have +their correspondence and consent. They who bow to the enemy abroad will +not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home. It is impossible not +to observe, that, in proportion as we approximate to the poisonous jaws +of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. In proportion as we are +attracted towards the focus of illegality, irreligion, and desperate +enterprise, all the venomous and blighting insects of the state are +awakened into life. The promise of the year is blasted and shrivelled +and burned up before them. Our most salutary and most beautiful +institutions yield nothing but dust and smut; the harvest of our law is +no more than stubble. It is in the nature of these eruptive diseases in +the state to sink in by fits and reappear. But the fuel of the malady +remains, and in my opinion is not in the smallest degree mitigated in +its malignity, though it waits the favorable moment of a freer +communication with the source of regicide to exert and to increase its +force. + +Is it that the people are changed, that the commonwealth cannot be +protected by its laws? I hardly think it. On the contrary, I conceive +that these things happen because men are not changed, but remain always +what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us ever must be, +when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide, leader, or +control: that is, made to be full of a blind elevation in prosperity; to +despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with unexpected reverses; to +find no clew in a labyrinth of difficulties; to get out of a present +inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to +fortune; to admire successful, though wicked enterprise, and to imitate +what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from +sacrilege and regicide whilst they are only in their infancy and their +struggle, but which finds nothing that can alarm in their adult state, +and in the power and triumph of those destructive principles. In a mass +we cannot be left to ourselves. We must have leaders. If none will +undertake to lead us right, we shall find guides who will contrive to +conduct us to shame and ruin. + +We are in a war of a _peculiar_ nature. It is not with an ordinary +community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may +veer about,--not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and +abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system which by its +essence is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or +war as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with +an _armed doctrine_ that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a +faction of opinion and of interest and of enthusiasm in every country. +To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our Channel. It has one foot on a +foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it +can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so completely +ruin any of the old governments, ours in particular, as the +acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority +in this new power. This acknowledgment we make, if, in a bad or doubtful +situation of our affairs, we solicit peace, or if we yield to the modes +of new humiliation in which alone she is content to give us an hearing. +By that means the terms cannot be of our choosing,--no, not in any part. + +It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things,--None can aspire +to act greatly but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who +make their arrangements in the first run of misadventure, and in a +temper of mind the common fruit of disappointment and dismay, put a seal +on their calamities. To their power they take a security against any +favors which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of fortune. I am +therefore, my dear friend, invariably of your opinion, (though full of +respect for those who think differently,) that neither the time chosen +for it, nor the manner of soliciting a negotiation, were properly +considered,--even though I had allowed (I hardly shall allow) that with +the horde of Regicides we could by any selection of time or use of means +obtain anything at all deserving the name of peace. + +In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances with +scorn. We have an enemy to whose virtues we can owe nothing, but on this +occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to +his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the +proud repel us has this of good in it,--that, in making us keep our +distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the +pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our +reason to operate, and for British dignity to recover from its surprise. +From first to last he has rejected all our advances. Far as we have +gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat. + +There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be +from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may +gather something from the time in which the first overtures are made, +from the quarter whence they come, from the manner in which they are +received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy +offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied +with something. It shows that there are limits to his ambition or his +resentment. If he offers nothing under misfortune, it is probable that +it is more painful to him to abandon the prospect of advantage than to +endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a +nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the +war threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident that he wishes +nothing more than to disarm his adversary to gain time. Afterwards a +question arises, Which of the parties is likely to obtain the greater +advantages by continuing disarmed and by the use of time? + +With these few plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper +to reconsider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from the +day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering this +part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose, +for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a Republic, is +a politic person, with whom something deserving the name of peace may be +made. On that supposition, let us examine our own proceeding. Let us +compute the profit it has brought, and the advantage that it is likely +to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought is not always the sooner +obtained. The discovery of vehement wishes generally frustrates their +attainment, and your adversary has gained a great advantage over you +when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in reserve +not only something of dignity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort +of courage belongs to negotiation, as well as to operations of the +field. A negotiator must often seem willing to hazard the whole issue +of his treaty, if he wishes to secure any one material point. + +The Regicides were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for +peace. In proportion to the humility and perseverance we have shown in +our addresses has been the obstinacy of their arrogance in rejecting our +suit. The patience of their pride seems to have been worn out with the +importunity of our courtship. Disgusted as they are with a conduct so +different from all the sentiments by which they are themselves filled, +they think to put an end to our vexatious solicitation by redoubling +their insults. + +It happens frequently that pride may reject a public advance, while +interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity +has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of +humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand,[23] of which, from the +motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed. +Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is its very character to +submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and +humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a +race; but it belongs to the family of fortitude. In the spirit of that +benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Regicide +not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial +murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of +the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been +an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the +declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the +service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend. +The very system and constitution of government that now prevails was +settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection +of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile +invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a shore +more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most +pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for +the miseries of war, and to open some sort of conversation, which, +(after our public overtures had glutted their pride,) at a cautious and +jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation.--What +was the event? A strange, uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the +opera, his head shaded with three-colored plumes, his body fantastically +habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in +the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who +came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with +directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him +to be sent from Paris in two hours. + +Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tenderness should not strike +athwart the sternness of politics, and make us recall to painful memory +the difference between this insolent and bloody theatre and the +temperate, natural majesty of a civilized court, where the afflicted +family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in +rank and the most compassionate of the compassionate sex. + +In this intercourse, at least, there was nothing to promise a great deal +of success in our future advances. Whilst the fortune of the field was +wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow where it +led: and it led to everything. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws +were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician in their +clan[24] was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to +their claims as to mark what for the present they are content to leave +to others. They made, not laws, not conventions, not late possession, +but physical Nature and political convenience the sole foundation of +their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the ocean were the +bounds which, for the time, they assigned to the Empire of Regicide. +What was the Chamber of Union of Louis the Fourteenth, which astonished +and provoked all Europe, compared to this declaration? In truth, with +these limits, and their principle, they would not have left even the +shadow of liberty or safety to any nation. This plan of empire was not +taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. You must +recollect that it was projected, just as the report has stated it, from +the very first revolt of the faction against their monarchy; and it has +been uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national policy, from +that time to this. It is generally in the season of prosperity that men +discover their real temper, principles, and designs. But this principle, +suggested in their first struggles, fully avowed in their prosperity, +has, in the most adverse state of their affairs, been tenaciously +adhered to. The report, combined with their conduct, forms an infallible +criterion of the views of this republic. + +In their fortune there has been some fluctuation. We are to see how +their minds have been affected with a change. Some impression it made on +them, undoubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the submissions +that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they did was to make +some of those cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace which +no power has ever refused to make, because they mean little and cost +nothing. The first paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburg) making +a show of that pacific disposition discovered a rooted animosity against +this nation, and an incurable rancor, even more than any one of their +hostile acts. In this Hamburg declaration they choose to suppose that +the war, on the part of England, _is a war of government, begun and +carried on against the sense and interests of the people_,--thus sowing +in their very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition: +for they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in +war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old, steady +maxim of separating the people from their government. Let me add, (and +it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of ministers +that I do add,) if our government perseveres in its as uniform course of +acting under instruments with such preambles, it pleads guilty to the +charges made by our enemies against it, both on its own part and on the +part of Parliament itself. The enemy must succeed in his plan for +loosening and disconnecting all the internal holdings of the kingdom. + +It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the +session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this +coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its +effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides produced a +direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses +of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not +be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered +still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them +by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an +obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of +the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and +taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their +gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our +advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under "evasive +formalities and frivolous pretexts." What these pretexts and evasions +were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest +there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in +the mass, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their +language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our +proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they +will offer peace "on conditions _as_ moderate"--as what? as reason and +as equity require? No,--as moderate "as are suitable to their _national +dignity_." National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important +consideration: they have given us an useful hint on that subject: but +dignity hitherto has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the +matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard +for rating the conditions of peace,--no, never by the most violent of +conquerors. Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no +standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition +may think fit for their _dignity_. But lest any doubt should remain on +what they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph +tell us "that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they +have reduced them to a state which will put them under an +_impossibility_ of pursuing their wretched projects,"--that is, in plain +French or English, until they have accomplished our utter and +irretrievable ruin. This is their _pacific_ language. It flows from +their unalterable principle, in whatever language they speak or whatever +steps they take, whether of real war or of pretended pacification. They +have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their +intentions. We were as obstinately resolved to think them not in +earnest: but I confess, jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may +be, are not much to my taste. + +To this conciliatory and amicable public communication our sole answer, +in effect, is this:--"Citizen Regicides! whenever _you_ find yourselves +in the humor, you may have a peace with _us_. That is a point you may +always command. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do +shall hinder us from the renewal of our supplications. You may turn us +out at the door, but we will jump in at the window." + +To those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I +do not know a more mortifying spectacle than to see the assembled +majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the +antechamber of Regicide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary +tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood +of his sovereign. Then, when, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall +have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what monarch he shall +next glut his ravening maw, he may condescend to signify that it is his +pleasure to be awake, and that he is at leisure to receive the proposals +of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the +execution of the sentence he has passed upon them. At the opening of +those doors, what a sight it must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of +royal impotence, in the precedency which they will intrigue to obtain, +and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their +degradation, sneaking into the Regicide presence, and, with the relics +of the smile which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters +still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of +their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of +a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring +them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his +guillotine! These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as +they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal +and faithful subjects, or with any true affection to their master, or +true attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country? +There is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this Trophonian +cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators, and such will +continue as long as they live. They will become true conductors of +contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to +the source of that electricity. At best, they will become totally +indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. This +species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those +who have been much employed in foreign courts, but in the present case +the evil must be aggravated without measure: for they go from their +country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the +lowest degradation; and what must happen in their place of residence can +have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity or of chaste +self-estimation, either as men or as representatives of crowned heads. + +Our early proceeding, which has produced these returns of affront, +appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new +circumstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and +messages in former times. I find nothing like these. You will look in +the journals to find whether my memory fails me. Before this time, never +was a ground of peace laid, (as it were, in a Parliamentary record,) +until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise homage paid to +the discretion of the crown. It was known how much a negotiation must +suffer by having anything in the train towards it prematurely disclosed. +But when those Parliamentary declarations were made, not so much as a +step had been taken towards a negotiation in any mode whatever. The +measure was an unpleasant and unseasonable discovery. + +I conceive that another circumstance in that transaction has been as +little authorized by any example, and that it is as little prudent in +itself: I mean the formal recognition of the French Republic. Without +entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested +in that measure, or on its general policy, I doubt, upon mere temporary +considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly advisable. It is +not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of +a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your +recognition will secure his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure worse +than thrown away. It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently +to the demands, of the adverse party. He has gained a fundamental point +without an equivalent. It has happened as might have been foreseen. No +notice whatever was taken of this recognition. In fact, the Directory +never gave themselves any concern about it; and they received our +acknowledgment with perfect scorn. With them it is not for the states of +Europe to judge of their title: the very reverse. In their eye the title +of every other power depends wholly on their pleasure. + +Preliminary declarations of this sort, thrown out at random, and sown, +as it wore, broadcast, were never to be found in the mode of our +proceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great monarchies of France +and Spain existed. I do not say that a diplomatic measure ought to be, +like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to strict +precedent: I hope I am far from that pedantry. But this I know: that a +great state ought to have some regard to its ancient maxims, especially +where they indicate its dignity, where they concur with the rules of +prudence, and, above all, where the circumstances of the time require +that a spirit of innovation should be resisted which leads to the +humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to assert that +those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit that +the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all other +considerations; but if there was a rule, that a sovereign never should +let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity +of kings would be held high enough. At present, however, fashion governs +in more serious things than furniture and dress. It looks as if +sovereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their estimation. It +seems as if the preeminence of regicide was acknowledged,--and that +kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as +natural magistrates and judges over them. It appears as if dignity were +the prerogative of crime, and a temporizing humiliation the proper part +for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the +most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their +place above kings. This example in foreign princes I trust will not +spread. It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order +should not, be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only title +to preeminence and honor. + +At this second stage of humiliation, (I mean the insulting declaration +in consequence of the message to both Houses of Parliament,) it might +not have been amiss to pause, and not to squander away the fund of our +submissions, until we knew what final purposes of public interest they +might answer. The policy of subjecting ourselves to further insults is +not to me quite apparent. It was resolved, however, to hazard a third +trial. Citizen Barthelemy had been established, on the part of the new +republic, at Basle,--where, with his proconsulate of Switzerland and the +adjacent parts of Germany, he was appointed as a sort of factor to deal +in the degradation of the crowned heads of Europe. At Basle it was +thought proper, in order to keep others, I suppose, in countenance, that +Great Britain should appear at this market, and bid with the rest for +the mercy of the People-King. + +On the 6th of March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, in consequence of authority, was +desired to sound France on her disposition towards a general +pacification,--to know whether she would consent to send ministers to a +congress at such a place as might be hereafter agreed upon,--whether +there would be a disposition to communicate the general grounds of a +pacification, such as France (the diplomatic name of the Regicide power) +would be willing to propose, as a foundation for a negotiation for peace +with his Majesty _and his allies_, or to suggest any other way of +arriving at the same end of a general pacification: but he had no +authority to enter into any negotiation or discussion with Citizen +Barthelemy upon these subjects. + +On the part of Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly +uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least +strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of men +but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such advances. They +could not, however, begin their answer, which was given without much +delay, and communicated on the 28th of the same month, without a +preamble of insult and reproach. "They doubt the sincerity of the +pacific intentions of this court." She did not begin, say they, yet to +"know her real interests." "She did not seek peace _with good faith_." +This, or something to this effect, has been the constant preliminary +observation (now grown into a sort of office form) on all our overtures +to this power: a perpetual charge on the British government of fraud, +evasion, and habitual perfidy. + +It might be asked, From whence did these opinions of our insincerity and +ill faith arise? It was because the British ministry (leaving to the +Directory, however, to propose a better mode) proposed a _congress_ for +the purpose of a general pacification, and this they said "would render +negotiation endless." From hence they immediately inferred a fraudulent +intention in the offer. Unquestionably their mode of giving the law +would bring matters to a more speedy conclusion. As to any other method +more agreeable to them than a congress, an alternative expressly +proposed to them, they did not condescend to signify their pleasure. + +This refusal of treating conjointly with the powers allied against this +republic furnishes matter for a great deal of serious reflection. They +have hitherto constantly declined any other than a treaty with a single +power. By thus dissociating every state from every other, like deer +separated from the herd, each power is treated with on the merit of his +being a deserter from the common cause. In that light, the Regicide +power, finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with great +facility gives the law to them all. By this system, for the present an +incurable distrust is sown amongst confederates, and in future all +alliance is rendered impracticable. It is thus they have treated with +Prussia, with Spain, with Sardinia, with Bavaria, with the +Ecclesiastical State, with Saxony; and here we see them refuse to treat +with Great Britain in any other mode. They must be worse than blind who +do not see with what undeviating regularity of system, in this case and +in all cases, they pursue their scheme for the utter destruction of +every independent power,--especially the smaller, who cannot find any +refuge whatever but in some common cause. + +Renewing their taunts and reflections, they tell Mr. Wickham, "that +_their_ policy has no guides but openness and good faith, and that their +conduct shall be conformable to these principles." They say concerning +their government, that, "yielding to the ardent desire by which it is +animated to procure peace for the French Republic and for all nations, +it will not _fear to declare itself openly_. Charged by the Constitution +with the execution of the _laws_, it cannot _make_ or _listen_ to any +proposal that would be contrary to them. The constitutional act does not +permit it to consent to any alienation of that which, according to the +existing laws, constitutes the territory of the Republic." + +"With respect to the countries _occupied by the French armies, and which +have not been united to France_, they, as well as other interests, +political and commercial, may become the subject of a negotiation, which +will present to the Directory the means of proving how much it desires +to attain speedily to a happy pacification." That "the Directory is +ready to receive, in this respect, any overtures that shall be just, +reasonable, and compatible _with the dignity of the Republic_." + +On the head of what is _not_ to be the subject of negotiation, the +Directory is clear and open. As to what may be a matter of treaty, all +this open dealing is gone. She retires into her shell. There she expects +overtures from _you_: and you are to guess what she shall judge just, +reasonable, and, above all, _compatible with her dignity_. + +In the records of pride there does not exist so insulting a declaration. +It is insolent in words, in manner; but in substance it is not only +insulting, but alarming. It is a specimen of what may be expected from +the masters we are preparing for our humbled country. Their openness and +candor consist in a direct avowal of their despotism and ambition. We +know that their declared resolution had been to surrender no object +belonging to France previous to the war. They had resolved that the +Republic was entire, and must remain so. As to what she has conquered +from the Allies and united to the same indivisible body, it is of the +same nature. That is, the Allies are to give up whatever conquests they +have made or may make upon France; but all which she has violently +ravished from her neighbors, and thought fit to appropriate, are not to +become so much as objects of negotiation. + +In this unity and indivisibility of possession are sunk ten immense and +wealthy provinces, full of strong, flourishing, and opulent cities, (the +Austrian Netherlands,) the part of Europe the most necessary to preserve +any communication between this kingdom and its natural allies, next to +Holland the most interesting to this country, and without which Holland +must virtually belong to France. Savoy and Nice, the keys of Italy, and +the citadel in her hands to bridle Switzerland, are in that +consolidation. The important territory of Liege is torn out of the heart +of the Empire. All these are integrant parts of the Republic, not to be +subject to any discussion, or to be purchased by any equivalent. Why? +Because there is a law which prevents it. What law? The law of nations? +The acknowledged public law of Europe? Treaties and conventions of +parties? No,--not a pretence of the kind. It is a declaration not made +in consequence of any prescription on her side,--not on any cession or +dereliction, actual or tacit, of other powers. It is a declaration, +_pendente lite_, in the middle of a war, one principal object of which +was originally the defence, and has since been the recovery, of these +very countries. + +This strange law is not made for a trivial object, not for a single port +or for a single fortress, but for a great kingdom,--for the religion, +the morals, the laws, the liberties, the lives and fortunes of millions +of human creatures, who, without their consent or that of their lawful +government, are, by an arbitrary act of this regicide and homicide +government which they call a law, incorporated into their tyranny. + +In other words, their will is the law, not only at home, but as to the +concerns of every nation. Who has made that law but the Regicide +Republic itself, whose laws, like those of the Medes and Persians, they +cannot alter or abrogate, or even so much as take into consideration? +Without the least ceremony or compliment, they have sent out of the +world whole sets of laws and lawgivers. They have swept away the very +constitutions under which the legislatures acted and the laws were made. +Even the fundamental sacred rights of man they have not scrupled to +profane. They have set this holy code at nought with ignominy and scorn. +Thus they treat all their domestic laws and constitutions, and even what +they had considered as a law of Nature. But whatever they have put their +seal on, for the purposes of their ambition, and the ruin of their +neighbors, this alone is invulnerable, impassible, immortal. Assuming to +be masters of everything human and divine, here, and here alone, it +seems, they are limited, "cooped and cabined in," and this omnipotent +legislature finds itself wholly without the power of exercising its +favorite attribute, the love of peace. In other words, they are powerful +to usurp, impotent to restore; and equally by their power and their +impotence they aggrandize themselves, and weaken and impoverish you and +all other nations. + +Nothing can be more proper or more manly than the state publication, +called a _Note_, on this proceeding, dated Downing Street, the 10th of +April, 1796. Only that it is better expressed, it perfectly agrees with +the opinion I have taken the liberty of submitting to your +consideration. I place it below at full length,[25] as my justification +in thinking that this astonishing paper from the Directory is not only a +direct negative to all treaty, but is a rejection of every principle +upon which treaties could be made. To admit it for a moment were to +erect this power, usurped at home, into a legislature to govern mankind. +It is an authority that on a thousand occasions they have asserted in +claim, and, whenever they are able, exerted in practice. The +dereliction, of this whole scheme of policy became, therefore, an +indispensable previous condition to all renewal of treaty. The remark of +the British Cabinet on this arrogant and tyrannical claim is natural and +unavoidable. Our ministry state, that, "_while these dispositions shall +be persisted in, nothing is left for the king but to prosecute a war +that is just and necessary_." + +It was of course that we should wait until the enemy showed some sort of +disposition on his part to fulfil this condition. It was hoped, indeed, +that our suppliant strains might be suffered to steal into the august +ear in a more propitious season. That season, however, invoked by so +many vows, conjurations, and prayers, did not come. Every declaration of +hostility renovated, and every act pursued with double animosity,--the +overrunning of Lombardy,--the subjugation of Piedmont,--the possession +of its impregnable fortresses,--the seizing on all the neutral states of +Italy,--our expulsion from Leghorn,--instances forever renewed for our +expulsion from Genoa,--Spain rendered subject to them and hostile to +us,--Portugal bent under the yoke,--half the Empire overrun and +ravaged,--were the only signs which this mild Republic thought proper to +manifest of her pacific sentiments. Every demonstration of an implacable +rancor and an untamable pride were the only encouragements we received +to the renewal of our supplications. + +Here, therefore, they and we were fixed. Nothing was left to the British +ministry but "to prosecute a war just and necessary,"--a war equally +just as at the time of our engaging in it,--a war become ten times more +necessary by everything which happened afterwards. This resolution was +soon, however, forgot. It felt the heat of the season and melted away. +New hopes were entertained from supplication. No expectations, indeed, +were then formed from renewing a direct application to the French +Regicides through the agent-general for the humiliation of sovereigns. +At length a step was taken in degradation which even went lower than all +the rest. Deficient in merits of our own, a mediator was to be +sought,--and we looked for that mediator at Berlin! The King of +Prussia's merits in abandoning the general cause might have obtained for +him some sort of influence in favor of those whom he had deserted; but I +have never heard that his Prussian Majesty had lately discovered so +marked an affection for the Court of St. James's, or for the Court of +Vienna, as to excite much hope of his interposing a very powerful +mediation to deliver them from the distresses into which he had brought +them. + +If humiliation is the element in which we live, if it is become not only +our occasional policy, but our habit, no great objection can be made to +the modes in which it may be diversified,--though I confess I cannot be +charmed with the idea of our exposing our lazar sores at the door of +every proud servitor of the French Republic, where the court dogs will +not deign to lick them. We had, if I am not mistaken, a minister at that +court, who might try its temper, and recede and advance as he found +backwardness or encouragement. But to send a gentleman there on no other +errand than this, and with no assurance whatever that he should not +find, what he did find, a repulse, seems to me to go far beyond all the +demands of a humiliation merely politic. I hope it did not arise from a +predilection for that mode of conduct. + +The cup of bitterness was not, however, drained to the dregs. Basle and +Berlin were not sufficient. After so many and so diversified repulses, +we were resolved to make another experiment, and to try another +mediator. Among the unhappy gentlemen in whose persons royalty is +insulted and degraded at the seat of plebeian pride and upstart +insolence, there is a minister from Denmark at Paris. Without any +previous encouragement to that, any more than the other steps, we sent +through, this turnpike to demand a passport for a person who on our part +was to solicit peace in the metropolis, at the footstool of Regicide +itself. It was not to be expected that any one of those degraded beings +could have influence enough to settle any part of the terms in favor of +the candidates for further degradation; besides, such intervention would +be a direct breach in their system, which did not permit one sovereign +power to utter a word in the concerns of his equal.--Another repulse. We +were desired to apply directly in our persons. We submitted, and made +the application. + +It might be thought that here, at length, we had touched the bottom of +humiliation; our lead was brought up covered with mud. But "in the +lowest deep, a lower deep" was to open for us still more profound +abysses of disgrace and shame. However, in we leaped. We came forward in +our own name. The passport, such a passport and safe-conduct as would be +granted to thieves who might come in to betray their accomplices, and no +better, was granted to British supplication. To leave no doubt of its +spirit, as soon as the rumor of this act of condescension could get +abroad, it was formally announced with an explanation from authority, +containing an invective against the ministry of Great Britain, their +habitual frauds, their proverbial _Punic_ perfidy. No such state-paper, +as a preliminary to a negotiation for peace, has ever yet appeared. Very +few declarations of war have ever shown so much and so unqualified +animosity. I place it below,[26] as a diplomatic curiosity, and in +order to be the better understood in the few remarks I have to make upon +a peace which, indeed, defies all description. "None but itself can be +its parallel." + +I pass by all the insolence and contumely of the performance, as it +comes from them. The present question is not, how we are to be affected +with it in regard to our dignity. That is gone. I shall say no more +about it. Light lie the earth on the ashes of English pride! I shall +only observe upon it _politically_, and as furnishing a direction for +our own conduct in this low business. + +The very idea of a negotiation for peace, whatever the inward sentiments +of the parties may be, implies some confidence in their faith, some +degree of belief in the professions which are made concerning it. A +temporary and occasional credit, at least, is granted. Otherwise men +stumble on the very threshold. I therefore wish to ask what hope we can +have of their good faith, who, as the very basis of the negotiation, +assume the ill faith and treachery of those they have to deal with? The +terms, as against us, must be such as imply a full security against a +treacherous conduct,--that is, such terms as this Directory stated in +its first declaration, to place us "in an utter impossibility of +executing our wretched projects." This is the omen, and the sole omen, +under which we have consented to open our treaty. + +The second observation I have to make upon it (much connected, +undoubtedly, with the first) is, that they have informed you of the +result they propose from the kind of peace they mean to grant you, +--that is to say, the union they propose among nations with the view of +rivalling our trade and destroying our naval power; and this they +suppose (and with good reason, too) must be the inevitable effect of +their peace. It forms one of their principal grounds for suspecting our +ministers could not be in good earnest in their proposition. They make +no scruple beforehand to tell you the whole of what they intend; and +this is what we call, in the modern style, the acceptance of a +proposition for peace! In old language it would be called a most +haughty, offensive, and insolent rejection of all treaty. + +Thirdly, they tell you what they conceive to be the perfidious policy +which dictates your delusive offer: that is, the design of cheating not +only them, but the people of England, against whose interest and +inclination this war is supposed to be carried on. + +If we proceed in this business, under this preliminary declaration, it +seems to me that we admit, (now for the third time,) by something a +great deal stronger than words, the truth of the charges of every kind +which they make upon the British ministry, and the grounds of those foul +imputations. The language used by us, which in other circumstances would +not be exceptionable, in this case tends very strongly to confirm and +realize the suspicion of our enemy: I mean the declaration, that, if we +do not obtain such terms of peace as suits our opinion of what our +interests require, _then_, and in _that_ case, we shall continue the war +with vigor. This offer, so reasoned, plainly implies, that, without it, +our leaders themselves entertain great doubts of the opinion and good +affections of the British people; otherwise there does not appear any +cause why we should proceed, under the scandalous construction of our +enemy, upon the former offer made by Mr. Wickham, and on the new offer +made directly at Paris. It is not, therefore, from a sense of dignity, +but from the danger of radicating that false sentiment in the breasts of +the enemy, that I think, under the auspices of this declaration, we +cannot, with the least hope of a good event, or, indeed, with any +regard to the common safety, proceed in the train of this negotiation. +I wish ministry would seriously consider the importance of their seeming +to confirm the enemy in an opinion that his frequent use of appeals to +the people against their government has not been without its effect. If +it puts an end to this war, it will render another impracticable. + +Whoever goes to the Directorial presence under this passport, with this +offensive comment and foul explanation, goes, in the avowed sense of the +court to which he is sent, as the instrument of a government dissociated +from the interests and wishes of the nation, for the purpose of cheating +both the people of France and the people of England. He goes out the +declared emissary of a faithless ministry. He has perfidy for his +credentials. He has national weakness for his full powers. I yet doubt +whether any one can be found to invest himself with that character. If +there should, it would be pleasant to read his instructions on the +answer which he is to give to the Directory, in case they should repeat +to him the substance of the manifesto which he carries with him in his +portfolio. + +So much for the _first_ manifesto of the Regicide Court which went along +with the passport. Lest this declaration should seem the effect of +haste, or a mere sudden effusion of pride and insolence, on full +deliberation, about a week after comes out a second. This manifesto is +dated the 5th of October, one day before the speech from the throne, on +the vigil of the festive day of cordial unanimity so happily celebrated +by all parties in the British Parliament. In this piece the Regicides, +our worthy friends, (I call them by advance and by courtesy what by law +I shall be obliged to call them hereafter,) our worthy friends, I say, +renew and enforce the former declaration concerning our faith and +sincerity, which they pinned to our passport. On three other points, +which run through all their declarations, they are more explicit than +ever. + +First, they more directly undertake to be the real representatives of +the people of this kingdom: and on a supposition, in which they agree +with our Parliamentary reformers, that the House of Commons is not that +representative, the function being vacant, they, as our true +constitutional organ, inform his Majesty and the world of the sense of +the nation. They tell us that "the English people see with regret his +Majesty's government squandering away the funds which had been granted +to him." This astonishing assumption of the public voice of England is +but a slight foretaste of the usurpation which, on a peace, we may be +assured they will make of all the powers in all the parts of our vassal +Constitution. "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be +done in the dry?" + +Next they tell us, as a condition to our treaty, that "this government +must abjure the unjust hatred it bears to them, and at last open its +ears to the voice of humanity." Truly, this is, even from them, an +extraordinary demand. Hitherto, it seems, we have put wax into our ears, +to shut them up against the tender, soothing strains, in the +_affettuoso_ of humanity, warbled from the throats of Reubell, Carnot, +Tallien, and the whole chorus of confiscators, domiciliary visitors, +committee-men of research, jurors and presidents of revolutionary +tribunals, regicides, assassins, massacrers, and Septembrisers. It is +not difficult to discern what sort of humanity our government is to +learn from these Siren singers. Our government also; I admit, with some +reason, as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required to abjure +the unjust hatred which it bears to this body of honor and virtue. I +thank God I am neither a minister nor a leader of opposition. I protest +I cannot do what they desire. I could not do it, if I were under the +guillotine,--or, as they ingeniously and pleasantly express it, "looking +out of the little national window." Even at that opening I could receive +none of their light. I am fortified against all such affections by the +declaration of the government, which I must yet consider as lawful, made +on the 29th of October, 1793,[27] and still ringing in my ears. This +Declaration was transmitted not only to all our commanders by sea and +land, but to our ministers in every court of Europe. It is the most +eloquent and highly finished in the style, the most judicious in the +choice of topics, the most orderly in the arrangement, and the most rich +in the coloring, without employing the smallest degree of exaggeration, +of any state-paper that has ever yet appeared. An ancient writer +(Plutarch, I think it is) quotes some verses on the eloquence of +Pericles, who is called "the only orator that left stings in the minds +of his hearers." Like his, the eloquence of the Declaration, not +contradicting, but enforcing, sentiments of the truest humanity, has +left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind and +never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder; never can the +throbbings they have created be assuaged by all the emollient cataplasms +of robbery and confiscation. I _cannot_ love the Republic. + +The third point, which they have more clearly expressed than ever, is of +equal importance with the rest, and with them furnishes a complete view +of the Regicide system. For they demand as a condition, without which +our ambassador of obedience cannot be received with any hope of success, +that he shall be "provided with full powers to negotiate a peace between +the French Republic and Great Britain, and to conclude it _definitively_ +between the TWO powers." With their spear they draw a circle about us. +They will hear nothing of a joint treaty. We must make a peace +separately from our allies. We must, as the very first and preliminary +step, be guilty of that perfidy towards our friends and associates with +which they reproach us in our transactions with them, our enemies. We +are called upon scandalously to betray the fundamental securities to +ourselves and to all nations. In my opinion, (it is perhaps but a poor +one,) if we are meanly bold enough to send an ambassador such as this +official note of the enemy requires, we cannot even dispatch our +emissary without danger of being charged with a breach of our alliance. +Government now understands the full meaning of the passport. + +Strange revolutions have happened in the ways of thinking and in the +feelings of men; but it is a very extraordinary coalition of parties +indeed, and a kind of unheard-of unanimity in public councils, which can +impose this new-discovered system of negotiation, as sound national +policy, on the understanding of a spectator of this wonderful scene, who +judges on the principles of anything he ever before saw, read, or heard +of, and, above all, on the understanding of a person who has in his eye +the transactions of the last seven years. + +I know it is supposed, that, if good terms of capitulation are not +granted, after we have thus so repeatedly hung out the white flag, the +national spirit will revive with tenfold ardor. This is an experiment +cautiously to be made. _Reculer pour mieux sauter_, according to the +French byword, cannot be trusted to as a general rule of conduct. To +diet a man into weakness and languor, afterwards to give him the greater +strength, has more of the empiric than the rational physician. It is +true that some persons have been kicked into courage,--and this is no +bad hint to give to those who are too forward and liberal in bestowing +insults and outrages on their passive companions; but such a course does +not at first view appear a well-chosen discipline to form men to a nice +sense of honor or a quick resentment of injuries. A long habit of +humiliation does not seem a very good preparative to manly and vigorous +sentiment. It may not leave, perhaps, enough of energy in the mind +fairly to discern what are good terms or what are not. Men low and +dispirited may regard those terms as not at all amiss which in another +state of mind they would think intolerable: if they grow peevish in this +state of mind, they may be roused, not against the enemy whom they have +been taught to fear, but against the ministry,[28] who are more within +their reach, and who have refused conditions that are not unreasonable, +from power that they have been taught to consider as irresistible. + +If all that for some months I have heard have the least foundation, (I +hope it has not,) the ministers are, perhaps, not quite so much to be +blamed as their condition is to be lamented. I have been given to +understand that these proceedings are not in their origin properly +theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the House of Commons. It is +said that ministers act, not according to the votes, but according to +the dispositions, of the majority. I hear that the minority has long +since spoken the general sense of the nation; and that to prevent those +who compose it from having the open and avowed lead in that House, or +perhaps in both Houses, it was necessary to preoccupy their ground, and +to take their propositions out of their mouths, even with the hazard of +being afterwards reproached with a compliance which it was foreseen +would be fruitless. + +If the general disposition of the people be, as I hear it is, for an +immediate peace with Regicide, without so much as considering our public +and solemn engagements to the party in France whose cause we had +espoused, or the engagements expressed in our general alliances, not +only without an inquiry into the terms, but with a certain knowledge +that none but the worst terms will be offered, it is all over with us. +It is strange, but it may be true, that, as the danger from Jacobinism +is increased in my eyes and in yours, the fear of it is lessened in the +eyes of many people who formerly regarded it with horror. It seems, they +act under the impression of terrors of another sort, which have +frightened them out of their first apprehensions. But let their fears, +or their hopes, or their desires, be what they will, they should +recollect that they who would make peace without a previous knowledge of +the terms make a surrender. They are conquered. They do not treat; they +receive the law. Is this the disposition of the people of England? Then +the people of England are contented to seek in the kindness of a +foreign, systematic enemy, combined with a dangerous faction at home, a +security which they cannot find in their own patriotism and their own +courage. They are willing to trust to the sympathy of regicides the +guaranty of the British monarchy. They are content to rest their +religion on the piety of atheists by establishment. They are satisfied +to seek in the clemency of practised murderers the security of their +lives. They are pleased to confide their property to the safeguard of +those who are robbers by inclination, interest, habit, and system. If +this be our deliberate mind, truly we deserve to lose, what it is +impossible we should long retain, the name of a nation. + +In matters of state, a constitutional competence to act is in many cases +the smallest part of the question. Without disputing (God forbid I +should dispute!) the sole competence of the king and the Parliament, +each in its province, to decide on war and peace, I venture to say no +war _can_ be long carried on against the will of the people. This war, +in particular, cannot be carried on, unless they are enthusiastically in +favor of it. Acquiescence will not do. There must be zeal. Universal +zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked +for; neither is it necessary. Zeal in the larger part carries the force +of the whole. Without this, no government, certainly not our +government, is capable of a great war. None of the ancient, regular +governments have wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and at +home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. It must be some +portentous thing, like Regicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy. +Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolific than the country of +old called _ferax monstrorum_, shows symptoms of being almost effete +already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace comes to +recruit her fertility. But whatever may be represented concerning the +meanness of the popular spirit, I, for one, do not think so desperately +of the British nation. Our minds, as I said, are light, but they are not +depraved. We are dreadfully open to delusion and to dejection; but we +are capable of being animated and undeceived. + +It cannot be concealed: we are a divided people. But in divisions, where +a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. I have +often endeavored to compute and to class those who, in any political +view, are to be called the people. Without doing something of this sort, +we must proceed absurdly. We should not be much wiser, if we pretended +to very great accuracy in our estimate; but I think, in the calculation +I have made, the error cannot be very material. In England and Scotland, +I compute that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable +leisure for such discussions, and of some means of information, more or +less, and who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such,) +may amount to about four hundred thousand. There is such a thing as a +natural representative of the people. This body is that representative; +and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial +representative depends. This is the British public; and it is a public +very numerous. The rest, when feeble, are the objects of +protection,--when strong, the means of force. They who affect to +consider that part of us in any other light insult while they cajole us; +they do not want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as +soldiers for battle. + +Of these four hundred thousand political citizens, I look upon one +fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins, utterly incapable +of amendment, objects of eternal vigilance, and, when they break out, of +legal constraint. On these, no reason, no argument, no example, no +venerable authority, can have the slightest influence. They desire a +change; and they will have it, if they can. If they cannot have it by +English cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the +cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incorporated. It +is only their assured and confident expectation of the advantages of +French fraternity, and the approaching blessings of Regicide +intercourse, that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a +momentary quiet. + +This minority is great and formidable. I do not know whether, if I aimed +at the total overthrow of a kingdom, I should wish to be incumbered with +a larger body of partisans. They are more easily disciplined and +directed than if the number were greater. These, by their spirit of +intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a force far +superior to their numbers, and, if times grew the least critical, have +the means of debauching or intimidating many of those who are now sound, +as well as of adding to their force large bodies of the more passive +part of the nation. This minority is numerous enough to make a mighty +cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehemently to +desire. By passing from place to place with a velocity incredible, and +diversifying their character and description, they are capable of +mimicking the general voice. We must not always judge of the generality +of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. + +The majority, the other four fifths, is perfectly sound, and of the best +possible disposition to religion, to government, to the true and +undivided interest of their country. Such men are naturally disposed to +peace. They who are in possession of all they wish are languid and +improvident. With this fault, (and I admit its existence in all its +extent,) they would not endure to hear of a peace that led to the ruin +of everything for which peace is dear to them. However, the desire of +peace is essentially the weak side of that kind of men. All men that are +ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. There they +are unguarded. Above all, good men do not suspect that their destruction +is attempted through their virtues. This their enemies are perfectly +aware of; and accordingly they, the most turbulent of mankind, who never +made a scruple to shake the tranquillity of their country to its centre, +raise a continual cry for peace with France. "Peace with Regicide, and +war with the rest of the world," is their motto. From the beginning, and +even whilst the French gave the blows, and we hardly opposed the _vis +inertiae_ to their efforts, from that day to this hour, like importunate +Guinea-fowls, crying one note day and night, they have called for +peace. + +In this they are, as I confess in all things they are, perfectly +consistent. They who wish to unite themselves to your enemies naturally +desire that you should disarm yourself by a peace with these enemies. +But it passes my conception how they who wish well to their country on +its ancient system of laws and manners come not to be doubly alarmed, +when they find nothing but a clamor for peace in the mouths of the men +on earth the least disposed to it in their natural or in their habitual +character. + +I have a good opinion of the general abilities of the Jacobins: not that +I suppose them better born than others; but strong passions awaken the +faculties; they suffer not a particle of the man to be lost. The spirit +of enterprise gives to this description the full use of all their native +energies. If I have reason to conceive that my enemy, who, as such, must +have an interest in my destruction, is also a person of discernment and +sagacity, then I must be quite sure, that, in a contest, the object he +violently pursues is the very thing by which my ruin is likely to be the +most perfectly accomplished. Why do the Jacobins cry for peace? Because +they know, that, this point gained, the rest will follow of course. On +our part, why are all the rules of prudence, as sure as the laws of +material Nature, to be, at this time reversed? How comes it, that now, +for the first time, men think it right to be governed by the counsels of +their enemies? Ought they not rather to tremble, when they are persuaded +to travel on the same road and to tend to the same place of rest? + +The minority I speak of is not susceptible of an impression from the +topics of argument to be used to the larger part of the community. I +therefore do not address to them any part of what I have to say. The +more forcibly I drive my arguments against their system, so as to make +an impression where I wish to make it, the more strongly I rivet them in +their sentiments. As for us, who compose the far larger, and what I call +the far better part of the people, let me say, that we have not been +quite fairly dealt with, when called to this deliberation. The Jacobin +minority have been abundantly supplied with stores and provisions of all +kinds towards their warfare. No sort of argumentative materials, suited +to their purposes, have been withheld. False they are, unsound, +sophistical; but they are regular in their direction. They all bear one +way, and they all go to the support of the substantial merits of their +cause. The others have not had the question so much as fairly stated to +them. + +There has not been in this century any foreign peace or war, in its +origin the fruit of popular desire, except the war that was made with +Spain in 1739. Sir Robert Walpole was forced into the war by the people, +who were inflamed to this measure by the most leading politicians, by +the first orators, and the greatest poets of the time. For that war Pope +sang his dying notes. For that war Johnson, in more energetic strains, +employed the voice of his early genius. For that war Glover +distinguished himself in the way in which his muse was the most natural +and happy. The crowd readily followed the politicians in the cry for a +war which threatened little bloodshed, and which promised victories that +were attended with something more solid than glory. A war with Spain was +a war of plunder. In the present conflict with Regicide, Mr. Pitt has +not hitherto had, nor will perhaps for a few days have, many prizes to +hold out in the lottery of war, to tempt the lower part of our +character. He can only maintain it by an appeal to the higher; and to +those in whom that higher part is the most predominant he must look the +most for his support. Whilst he holds out no inducements to the wise nor +bribes to the avaricious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace +ten times more ruinous than the most disastrous war. The weaker he is in +the fund of motives which apply to our avarice, to our laziness, and to +our lassitude, if he means to carry the war to any end at all, the +stronger he ought to be in his addresses to our magnanimity and to our +reason. + +In stating that Walpole was driven by a popular clamor into a measure +not to be justified, I do not mean wholly to excuse his conduct. My time +of observation did not exactly coincide with that event, but I read much +of the controversies then carried on. Several years after the contests +of parties had ceased, the people were amused, and in a degree warmed +with them. The events of that era seemed then of magnitude, which the +revolutions of our time have reduced to parochial importance; and the +debates which then shook the nation now appear of no higher moment than +a discussion in a vestry. When I was very young, a general fashion told +me I was to admire some of the writings against that minister; a little +more maturity taught me as much to despise them. I observed one fault in +his general proceeding. He never manfully put forward the entire +strength of his cause. He temporized, be managed, and, adopting very +nearly the sentiments of his adversaries, he opposed their inferences. +This, for a political commander, is the choice of a weak post. His +adversaries had the better of the argument as he handled it, not as the +reason and justice of his cause enabled him to manage it. I say this, +after having seen, and with some care examined, the original documents +concerning certain important transactions of those times. They perfectly +satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war, and of the falsehood +of the colors which, to his own ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, +he suffered to be daubed over that measure. Some years after, it was my +fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that +minister, and with those who principally excited that clamor. None of +them, no, not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to +justify their conduct. They condemned it as freely as they would have +done in commenting upon any proceeding in history in which they were +totally unconcerned. Thus it will be. They who stir up the people to +improper desires, whether of peace or war, will be condemned by +themselves. They who weakly yield to them will be condemned by history. + +In my opinion, the present ministry are as far from doing full justice +to their cause in this war as Walpole was from doing justice to the +peace which at that time he was willing to preserve. They throw the +light on one side only of their case; though it is impossible they +should not observe that the other side, which is kept in the shade, has +its importance too. They must know that France is formidable, not only +as she is France, but as she is Jacobin France. They knew from the +beginning that the Jacobin party was not confined to that country. They +knew, they felt, the strong disposition of the same faction in both +countries to communicate and to cooeperate. For some time past, these two +points have been kept, and even industriously kept, out of sight. France +is considered as merely a foreign power, and the seditious English only +as a domestic faction. The merits of the war with the former have been +argued solely on political grounds. To prevent the mischievous doctrines +of the latter from corrupting our minds, matter and argument have been +supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit, on the excellency of our own +government. But nothing has been done to make us feel in what manner the +safety of that government is connected with the principle and with the +issue of this war. For anything which in the late discussion has +appeared, the war is entirely collateral to the state of Jacobinism,--as +truly a foreign war to us and to all our home concerns as the war with +Spain in 1739, about _Guardacostas_, the Madrid Convention, and the +fable of Captain Jenkins's ears. + +Whenever the adverse party has raised a cry for peace with the Regicide, +the answer has been little more than this: "That the administration +wished for such a peace full as much as the opposition, but that the +time was not convenient for making it." Whatever else has been said was +much in the same spirit. Reasons of this kind never touched the +substantial merits of the war. They were in the nature of dilatory +pleas, exceptions of form, previous questions. Accordingly, all the +arguments against a compliance with what was represented as the popular +desire (urged on with all possible vehemence and earnestness by the +Jacobins) have appeared flat and languid, feeble and evasive. They +appeared to aim only at gaining time. They never entered into the +peculiar and distinctive character of the war. They spoke neither to the +understanding nor to the heart. Cold as ice themselves, they never could +kindle in our breasts a spark of that zeal which is necessary to a +conflict with an adverse zeal; much less were they made to infuse into +our minds that stubborn, persevering spirit which alone is capable of +bearing up against those vicissitudes of fortune which will probably +occur, and those burdens which must be inevitably borne, in a long war. +I speak it emphatically, and with a desire that it should be marked,--in +a _long_ war; because, without such a war, no experience has yet told us +that a dangerous power has ever been reduced to measure or to reason. I +do not throw back my view to the Peloponnesian War of twenty-seven +years; nor to two of the Punic Wars, the first of twenty-four, the +second of eighteen; nor to the more recent war concluded by the Treaty +of Westphalia, which continued, I think, for thirty. I go to what is but +just fallen behind living memory, and immediately touches our own +country. Let the portion of our history from the year 1689 to 1713 be +brought before us. We shall find that in all that period of twenty-four +years there were hardly five that could be called a season of peace; and +the interval between the two wars was in reality nothing more than a +very active preparation for renovated hostility. During that period, +every one of the propositions of peace came from the enemy: the first, +when they were accepted, at the Peace of Ryswick; the second, where they +were rejected, at the Congress at Gertruydenberg; the last, when the war +ended by the Treaty of Utrecht. Even then, a very great part of the +nation, and that which contained by far the most intelligent statesmen, +was against the conclusion of the war. I do not enter into the merits of +that question as between the parties. I only state the existence of that +opinion as a fact, from whence you may draw such an inference as you +think properly arises from it. + +It is for us at present to recollect what we have been, and to consider +what, if we please, we may be still. At the period of those wars our +principal strength was found in the resolution of the people, and that +in the resolution of a part only of the then whole, which bore no +proportion to our existing magnitude. England and Scotland were not +united at the beginning of that mighty struggle. When, in the course of +the contest, they were conjoined, it was in a raw, an ill-cemented, an +unproductive, union. For the whole duration of the war, and long after, +the names and other outward and visible signs of approximation rather +augmented than diminished our insular feuds. They were rather the causes +of new discontents and new troubles than promoters of cordiality and +affection. The now single and potent Great Britain was then not only two +countries, but, from the party heats in both, and the divisions formed +in each of them, each of the old kingdoms within itself, in effect, was +made up of two hostile nations. Ireland, now so large a source of the +common opulence and power, and which, wisely managed, might be made much +more beneficial and much more effective, was then the heaviest of the +burdens. An army, not much less than forty thousand men, was drawn from +the general effort, to keep that kingdom in a poor, unfruitful, and +resourceless subjection. + +Such was the state of the empire. The state of our finances was worse, +if possible. Every branch of the revenue became less productive after +the Revolution. Silver, not as now a sort of counter, but the body of +the current coin, was reduced so low as not to have above three parts in +four of the value in the shilling. In the greater part the value hardly +amounted to a fourth. It required a dead expense of three millions +sterling to renew the coinage. Public credit, that great, but ambiguous +principle, which has so often been predicted as the cause of our certain +ruin, but which for a century has been the constant companion, and often +the means, of our prosperity and greatness, had its origin, and was +cradled, I may say, in bankruptcy and beggary. At this day we have seen +parties contending to be admitted, at a moderate premium, to advance +eighteen millions to the exchequer. For infinitely smaller loans, the +Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, Montagu, the father of public +credit, counter-securing the state by the appearance of the city with +the Lord Mayor of London at his side, was obliged, like a solicitor for +an hospital, to go cap in hand from shop to shop, to borrow an hundred +pound, and even smaller sums. When made up in driblets as they could, +their best securities were at an interest of twelve per cent. Even the +paper of the Bank (now at par with cash, and generally preferred to it) +was often at a discount of twenty per cent. By this the state of the +rest may be judged. + +As to our commerce, the imports and exports of the nation, now +six-and-forty million, did not then amount to ten. The inland trade, +which is commonly passed by in this sort of estimates, but which, in +part growing out of the foreign, and connected with it, is more +advantageous and more substantially nutritive to the state, is not only +grown in a proportion of near five to one as the foreign, but has been +augmented at least in a tenfold proportion. When I came to England, I +remember but one river navigation, the rate of carriage on which was +limited by an act of Parliament. It was made in the reign of William the +Third. I mean that of the Aire and Calder. The rate was settled at +thirteen pence. So high a price demonstrated the feebleness of these +beginnings of our inland intercourse. In my time, one of the longest and +sharpest contests I remember in your House, and which rather resembled a +violent contention amongst national parties than a local dispute, was, +as well as I can recollect, to hold the price up to threepence. Even +this, which a very scanty justice to the proprietors required, was done +with infinite difficulty. As to private credit, there were not, as I +believe, twelve bankers' shops at that time out of London. In this their +number, when I first saw the country, I cannot be quite exact; but +certainly those machines of domestic credit were then very few. They are +now in almost every market-town: and this circumstance (whether the +thing be carried to an excess or not) demonstrates the astonishing +increase of private confidence, of general circulation, and of internal +commerce,--an increase out of all proportion to the growth of the +foreign trade. Our naval strength in the time of King William's war was +nearly matched by that of France; and though conjoined with Holland, +then a maritime power hardly inferior to our own, even with that force +we were not always victorious. Though finally superior, the allied +fleets experienced many unpleasant reverses on their own element. In two +years three thousand vessels were taken from the English trade. On the +Continent we lost almost every battle we fought. + +In 1697, (it is not quite an hundred years ago,) in that state of +things, amidst the general debasement of the coin, the fall of the +ordinary revenue, the failure of all the extraordinary supplies, the +ruin of commerce, and the almost total extinction of an infant credit, +the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, whom we have just seen begging +from door to door, came forward to move a resolution full of vigor, in +which, far from being discouraged by the generally adverse fortune and +the long continuance of the war, the Commons agreed to address the crown +in the following manly, spirited, and truly animating style:-- + +"This is the EIGHTH year in which your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal +subjects, the Commons in Parliament assembled, have assisted your +Majesty with large supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, in +defence of our religion, preservation of our laws, and vindication of +the rights and liberties of the people of England." + +Afterwards they proceed in this manner:-- + +"And to show to your Majesty and all Christendom that the Commons of +England will not be _amused_ or diverted from their firm resolutions of +obtaining by WAR a safe and honorable peace, we do, in the name of all +those we represent, renew our assurances to your Majesty that this House +will support your Majesty and your government against all your enemies, +both at home and abroad, and that they will effectually assist you in +the prosecution and carrying on the present war against France." + +The amusement and diversion they speak of was the suggestion of a treaty +_proposed by the enemy_, and announced from the throne. Thus the people +of England felt in the _eighth_, not in the _fourth_ year of the war. No +sighing or panting after negotiation; no motions from the opposition to +force the ministry into a peace; no messages from ministers to palsy and +deaden the resolution of Parliament or the spirit of the nation. They +did not so much as advise the king to listen to the propositions of the +enemy, nor to seek for peace, but through the mediation of a vigorous +war. This address was moved in an hot, a divided, a factious, and, in a +great part, disaffected House of Commons; and it was carried, _nemine +contradicente_. + +While that first war (which was ill smothered by the Treaty of Ryswick) +slept in the thin ashes of a seeming peace, a new conflagration was in +its immediate causes. A fresh and a far greater war was in preparation. +A year had hardly elapsed, when arrangements were made for renewing the +contest with tenfold fury. The steps which were taken, at that time, to +compose, to reconcile, to unite, and to discipline all Europe against +the growth of France, certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and +most interesting part in the history of that great period. It formed the +masterpiece of King William's policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Full +of the idea of preserving not only a local civil liberty united with +order to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the +order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the +king called upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture "_to +preserve to England the weight and influence it at present had on the +councils and affairs_ ABROAD. It will be requisite _Europe_ Should see +you will not be wanting to yourselves." + +Baffled as that monarch was, and almost heartbroken at the +disappointment he met with in the mode he first proposed for that great +end, he held on his course. He was faithful to his object; and in +councils, as in arms, over and over again repulsed, over and over again +he returned to the charge. All the mortifications he had suffered from +the last Parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from that newly +chosen, were not capable of relaxing the vigor of his mind. He was in +Holland when he combined the vast plan of his foreign negotiations. When +he came to open his design to his ministers in England, even the sober +firmness of Somers, the undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the +adventurous spirit of Montagu and Orford were staggered. They were not +yet mounted to the elevation of the king. The cabinet, then the regency, +met on the subject at Tunbridge Wells, the 28th of August, 1698; and +there, Lord Somers holding the pen, after expressing doubts on the state +of the Continent, which they ultimately refer to the king, as best +informed, they give him a most discouraging portrait of the spirit of +this nation. "So far as relates to England," say these ministers, "it +would be want of duty not to give your Majesty this clear account: that +there is _a deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally_, so +as not at all to be disposed to _the thought of entering into a new +war_; and that they seem to be _tired out with taxes_ to a degree beyond +what was discerned, till it appeared upon the occasion of _the late +elections_. This is the truth of the fact, upon which your Majesty will +determine what resolutions are proper to be taken." + +His Majesty did determine,--and did take and pursue his resolution. In +all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with Parliament +totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of +his people by his fortitude, to steady their fickleness by his +constancy, to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom, to +sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people, +he resolved to make them great and glorious,--to make England, inclined +to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary +angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers, who staggered under +the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt +themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul, he +renewed in them their ancient heart, he rallied them in the same cause. + +It required some time to accomplish this work. The people were first +gained, and, through them, their distracted representatives. Under the +influence of King William, Holland had rejected the allurements of every +seduction, and had resisted the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal +at her gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all separate +treaty, or anything which might for a moment appear to divide her +affection or her interest or even to distinguish her in identity from +England. Having settled the great point of the consolidation (which he +hoped would be eternal) of the countries made for a common interest and +common sentiment, the king, in his message to both Houses, calls their +attention to the affairs of the _States General_. The House of Lords +was perfectly sound, and entirely impressed with the wisdom and dignity +of the king's proceedings. In answer to the message, which you will +observe was narrowed to a single point, (the danger of the States +General,) after the usual professions of zeal for his service, the Lords +opened themselves at large. They go far beyond the demands of the +message. They express themselves as follows. + +"We take this occasion _further_ to assure your Majesty we are very +sensible of _the great and imminent danger to which the States General +are at present exposed; and we do perfectly agree with them in believing +that their safety and ours are so inseparably united that whatsoever is +ruin to the one must be fatal to the other_. + +"And we humbly desire your Majesty will be pleased _not only_ to make +good all the articles of any _former_ treaty to the States General, but +that you will enter into a strict league offensive and defensive with +them _for our common preservation; and that you will invite into it all +princes and states who are concerned in the present visible danger +arising from the union of France and Spain_. + +"And we further desire your Majesty, that you will be pleased to enter +into such alliances with the _Emperor_ as your Majesty shall think fit, +pursuant to the ends of the treaty of 1689: towards all which we assure +your Majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not doubting, but, +whenever your Majesty shall be obliged to engage for the defence of your +allies, _and for securing the liberty and quiet of Europe_, Almighty God +will protect your sacred person in so righteous a cause, and that the +unanimity, wealth, and courage of your subjects will carry your Majesty +with honor and success _through all the difficulties of a_ JUST WAR." + +The House of Commons was more reserved. The late popular disposition was +still in a great degree prevalent in the representative, after it had +been made to change in the constituent body. The principle of the Grand +Alliance was not directly recognized in the resolution of the Commons, +nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance was +formed for the war. However, compelled by the returning sense of the +people, they went so far as to fix the three great immovable pillars of +the safety and greatness of England, as they were then, as they are now, +and as they must ever be to the end of time. They asserted in general +terms the necessity of supporting Holland, of keeping united with our +allies, and maintaining the liberty of Europe; though they restricted +their vote to the succors stipulated by actual treaty. But now they were +fairly embarked, they were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; +and the whole nation, split before into an hundred adverse factions, +with a king at its head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole +nation, lords, commons, and people, proceeded as one body informed by +one soul. Under the British union, the union of Europe was consolidated; +and it long held together with a degree of cohesion, firmness, and +fidelity not known before or since in any political combination of that +extent. + +Just as the last hand was given to this immense and complicated machine, +the master workman died. But the work was formed on true mechanical +principles, and it was as truly wrought. It went by the impulse it had +received from the first mover. The man was dead; but the Grand Alliance +survived, in which King William lived and reigned. That heartless and +dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had represented about two years +before as dead in energy and operation, continued that war, to which it +was supposed they were unequal in mind and in means, for near thirteen +years. + +For what have I entered into all this detail? To what purpose have I +recalled your view to the end of the last century? It has been done to +show that the British nation was then a great people,--to point out how +and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar level, and to +take that lead which they assumed among mankind. To qualify us for that +preeminence, we had then an high mind and a constancy unconquerable; we +were then inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were durable as +well as warm, such as corresponded to the great interests we had at +stake. This force of character was inspired, as all such spirit must +ever be, from above. Government gave the impulse. As well may we fancy +that of itself the sea will swell, and that without winds the billows +will insult the adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people will +be moved, and elevated, and continue by a steady and permanent direction +to bear upon one point, without the influence of superior authority or +superior mind. + +This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been given in this war; and +it ought to have been continued to it at every instant. It is made, if +ever war was made, to touch all the great springs of action in the human +breast. It ought not to have been a war of apology. The minister had, in +this conflict, wherewithal to glory in success, to be consoled in +adversity, to hold high his principle in all fortunes. If it were not +given him to support the falling edifice, he ought to bury himself under +the ruins of the civilized world. All the art of Greece and all the +pride and power of Eastern monarchs never heaped upon their ashes so +grand a monument. + +There were days when his great mind was up to the crisis of the world he +is called to act in.[29] His manly eloquence was equal to the elevated +wisdom of such sentiments. But the little have triumphed over the great: +an unnatural, (as it should seem,) not an unusual victory. I am sure you +cannot forget with how much uneasiness we heard, in conversation, the +language of more than one gentleman at the opening of this +contest,--"that he was willing to try the war for a year or two, and, if +it did not succeed, then to vote for peace." As if war was a matter of +experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolic! +As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her murderous spear +in her hand and her Gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted +with! We ought with reverence to approach that tremendous divinity, that +loves courage, but commands counsel. War never leaves where it found a +nation. It is never to be entered into without a mature +deliberation,--not a deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing +indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment. +When so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without reason as valid, as +fully and as extensively considered. Peace may be made as unadvisedly as +war. Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very +rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils +from which they would fly. + +In that great war carried on against Louis the Fourteenth for near +eighteen years, government spared no pains to satisfy the nation, that, +though they were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was not +their ultimate object; but that everything dear to them, in religion, in +law, in liberty, everything which as freemen, as Englishmen, and as +citizens of the great commonwealth of Christendom, they had at heart, +was then at stake. This was to know the true art of gaining the +affections and confidence of an high-minded people; this was to +understand human nature. A danger to avert a danger, a present +inconvenience and suffering to prevent a foreseen future and a worse +calamity,--these are the motives that belong to an animal who in his +constitution is at once adventurous and provident, circumspect and +daring,--whom his Creator has made, as the poet says, "of large +discourse, looking before and after." But never can a vehement and +sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of +calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts +of adversity. Even where men are willing, as sometimes they are, to +barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety for the +gratification of their avarice, the passion which animates them to that +sort of conflict, like all the shortsighted passions, must see its +objects distinct and near at hand. The passions of the lower order are +hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder,--contingent spoil,--future, +long adjourned, uncertain booty,--pillage which must enrich a late +posterity, and which possibly may not reach to posterity at all,--these, +for any length of time, will never support a mercenary war. The people +are in the right. The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. +On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar +are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should +never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our +family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The +rest is vanity; the rest is crime. + +In the war of the Grand Alliance most of these considerations +voluntarily and naturally had their part. Some were pressed into the +service. The political interest easily went in the track of the natural +sentiment. In the reverse course the carriage does not follow freely. I +am sure the natural feeling, as I have just said, is a far more +predominant ingredient in this war than in that of any other that ever +was waged by this kingdom. + +If the war made to prevent the union of two crowns upon one head was a +just war, this, which is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all +heads which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to smite off the +sacred heads themselves, this is a just war. + +If a war to prevent Louis the Fourteenth from imposing his religion was +just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the Sixteenth from +imposing their irreligion upon us is just: a war to prevent the +operation of a system which makes life without dignity and death without +hope is a just war. + +If to preserve political independence and civil freedom to nations was a +just ground of war, a war to preserve national independence, property, +liberty, life, and honor from certain universal havoc is a war just +necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every +principle, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them +all, and all equally, has an existence in the world. + +You, who have looked at this matter with as fair and impartial an eye as +can be united with a feeling heart, you will not think it an hardy +assertion, when I affirm that it were far better to be conquered by any +other nation than to have this faction for a neighbor. Before I felt +myself authorized to say this, I considered the state of all the +countries in Europe for these last three hundred years, which have been +obliged to submit to a foreign law. In most of those I found the +condition of the annexed countries even better, certainly not worse, +than the lot of those which were the patrimony of the conqueror. They +wanted some blessings, but they were free from many very great evils. +They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorraine, +Alsatia, under the old government of France. Such was Silesia under the +King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabric +are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions, and to +end at last in being conquered, if not to her dominion, to her +resemblance. But when we talk of conquest by other nations, it is only +to put a case. This is the only power in Europe by which it is +_possible_ we should be conquered. To live under the continual dread of +such immeasurable evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without +the dread of them is to turn the danger into the disaster. The influence +of such a France is equal to a war, its example more wasting than an +hostile irruption. The hostility with any other power is separable and +accidental: this power, by the very condition of its existence, by its +very essential constitution, is in a state of hostility with us, and +with all civilized people.[30] + +A government of the nature of that set up at our very door has never +been hitherto seen or even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it +will be cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious thing to +have a connection with a people who live only under positive, arbitrary, +and changeable institutions,--and those not perfected nor supplied nor +explained by any common, acknowledged rule of moral science. I remember, +that, in one of my last conversations with the late Lord Camden, we were +struck much in the same manner with the abolition in France of the law +as a science of methodized and artificial equity. France, since her +Revolution, is under the sway of a sect whose leaders have deliberately, +at one stroke, demolished the whole body of that jurisprudence which +France had pretty nearly in common with other civilized countries. In +that jurisprudence were contained the elements and principles of the law +of nations, the great ligament of mankind. With the law they have of +course destroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was taught, as +well as all the corporations established for its conservation. I have +not heard of any country, whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa +on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly without some such colleges +and such corporations, except France. No man, in a public or private +concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be +directed: nor is there to be found a professor in any university, or a +practitioner in any court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is +not law in France, in any case whatever. They have not only annulled all +their old treaties, but they have renounced the law of nations, from +whence treaties have their force. With a fixed design they have outlawed +themselves, and to their power outlawed all other nations. + +Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great +politic communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their +republic on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which +the communities of Europe are built. Its foundation is laid in Regicide, +in Jacobinism, and in Atheism; and it has joined to those principles a +body of systematic manners which secures their operation. + +If I am asked how I would be understood in the use of these terms, +Regicide, Jacobinism, Atheism, and a system of correspondent manners, +and their establishment, I will tell you. + +I call a commonwealth _Regicide_ which lays it down as a fixed law of +Nature and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not being a +democracy, is an usurpation,[31]--that all kings, as such, are usurpers, +and, for being kings, may and ought to be put to death, with their +wives, families, and adherents. The commonwealth which acts uniformly +upon those principles, and which, after abolishing every festival of +religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous regicide treason +for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which forces all her people to +observe it,--this I call _Regicide by Establishment_. + +Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country +against its property. When private men form themselves into associations +for the purpose of destroying the preexisting laws and institutions of +their country,--when they secure to themselves an army by dividing +amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient and lawful +proprietors,--when a state recognizes those acts,--when it does not make +confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations,--when it +has its principal strength and all its resources in such a violation of +property,--when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by +judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal +government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions,--I +call this _Jacobinism by Establishment_. + +I call it _Atheism by Establishment_, when any state, as such, shall not +acknowledge the existence of God as a moral governor of the world,--when +it shall offer to Him no religious or moral worship,--when it shall +abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree,--when it shall +persecute, with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of +confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all its ministers,--when +it shall generally shut up or pull down churches,--when the few +buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose +of making a profane apotheosis of monsters whose vices and crimes have +no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of +general detestation and the severest animadversion of law. When, in the +place of that religion of social benevolence and of individual +self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they institute impious, +blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honor of their vitiated, +perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own +corrupted and bloody republic,--when schools and seminaries are founded +at public expense to poison mankind, from generation to generation, with +the horrible maxims of this impiety,--when, wearied out with incessant +martyrdom, and the cries of a people hungering and thirsting for +religion, they permit it only as a tolerated evil,--I call this _Atheism +by Establishment_. + +When to these establishments of Regicide, of Jacobinism, and of Atheism, +you add the _correspondent system of manners_, no doubt can be left on +the mind of a thinking man concerning their determined hostility to the +human race. Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a +great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, +and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, +exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, +insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give +their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, +they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them. Of this +the new French legislators were aware; therefore, with the same method, +and under the same authority, they settled a system of manners, the most +licentious, prostitute, and abandoned that ever has been known, and at +the same time the most coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. Nothing in +the Revolution, no, not to a phrase or a gesture, not to the fashion of +a hat or a shoe, was left to accident. All has been the result of +design; all has been matter of institution. No mechanical means could be +devised in favor of this incredible system of wickedness and vice, that +has not been employed. The noblest passions, the love of glory, the love +of country, have been debauched into means of its preservation and its +propagation. All sorts of shows and exhibitions, calculated to inflame +and vitiate the imagination and pervert the moral sense, have been +contrived. They have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred drunken +women calling at the bar of the Assembly for the blood of their own +children, as being Royalists or Constitutionalists. Sometimes they have +got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand the murder +of their sons, boasting that Rome had but one Brutus, but that they +could show five hundred. There were instances in which they inverted and +retaliated the impiety, and produced sons who called for the execution +of their parents. The foundation of their republic is laid in moral +paradoxes. Their patriotism is always prodigy. All those instances to be +found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, +at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which +affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for +the instruction of their youth. + +The whole drift of their institution is contrary to that of the wise +legislators of all countries, who aimed at improving instincts into +morals, and at grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural +affections. They, on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate +every benevolent and noble propensity in the mind of men. In their +culture it is a rule always to graft virtues on vices. They think +everything unworthy of the name of public virtue, unless it indicates +violence on the private. All their new institutions (and with them +everything is new) strike at the root of our social nature. Other +legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and +consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavored by every +art to make it sacred. The Christian religion, by confining it to the +pairs, and by rendering that relation indissoluble, has by these two +things done more towards the peace, happiness, settlement, and +civilization of the world than by any other part in this whole scheme of +Divine wisdom. The direct contrary course has been taken in the +synagogue of Antichrist,--I mean in that forge and manufactory of all +evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of 1789. +Those monsters employed the same or greater industry to desecrate and +degrade that state, which other legislators have used to render it holy +and honorable. By a strange, uncalled-for declaration, they pronounced +that marriage was no better than a common civil contract. It was one of +their ordinary tricks, to put their sentiments into the mouths of +certain personated characters, which they theatrically exhibited at the +bar of what ought to be a serious assembly. One of these was brought out +in the figure of a prostitute, whom they called by the affected name of +"a mother without being a wife." This creature they made to call for a +repeal of the incapacities which in civilized states are put upon +bastards. The prostitutes of the Assembly gave to this their puppet the +sanction of their greater impudence. In consequence of the principles +laid down, and the manners authorized, bastards were not long after put +on the footing of the issue of lawful unions. Proceeding in the spirit +of the first authors of their Constitution, succeeding Assemblies went +the full length of the principle, and gave a license to divorce at the +mere pleasure of either party, and at a month's notice. With them the +matrimonial connection is brought into so degraded a state of +concubinage, that I believe none of the wretches in London who keep +warehouses of infamy would give out one of their victims to private +custody on so short and insolent a tenure. There was, indeed, a kind of +profligate equity in giving to women the same licentious power. The +reason they assigned was as infamous as the act: declaring that women +had been too long under the tyranny of parents and of husbands. It is +not necessary to observe upon the horrible consequences of taking one +half of the species wholly out of the guardianship and protection of the +other. + +The practice of divorce, though in some countries permitted, has been +discouraged in all. In the East, polygamy and divorce are in discredit; +and the manners correct the laws. In Rome, whilst Rome was in its +integrity, the few causes allowed for divorce amounted in effect to a +prohibition. They were only three. The arbitrary was totally excluded; +and accordingly some hundreds of years passed without a single example +of that kind. When manners were corrupted, the laws were relaxed; as the +latter always follow the former, when they are not able to regulate them +or to vanquish them. Of this circumstance the legislators of vice and +crime were pleased to take notice, as an inducement to adopt their +regulation: holding out an hope that the permission would as rarely be +made use of. They knew the contrary to be true; and they had taken good +care that the laws should be well seconded by the manners. Their law of +divorce, like all their laws, had not for its object the relief of +domestic uneasiness, but the total corruption of all morals, the total +disconnection of social life. + +It is a matter of curiosity to observe the operation of this +encouragement to disorder. I have before me the Paris paper +correspondent to the usual register of births, marriages, and deaths. +Divorce, happily, is no regular head of registry amongst civilized +nations. With the Jacobins it is remarkable that divorce is not only a +regular head, but it has the post of honor. It occupies the first place +in the list. In the three first months of the year 1793 the number of +divorces in that city amounted to 562; the marriages were 1785: so that +the proportion of divorces to marriages was not much less than one to +three: a thing unexampled, I believe, among mankind. I caused an inquiry +to be made at Doctors' Commons concerning the number of divorces, and +found that all the divorces (which, except by special act of Parliament, +are separations, and not proper divorces) did not amount in all those +courts, and in an hundred years, to much more than one fifth of those +that passed in the single city of Paris in three months. I followed up +the inquiry relative to that city through several of the subsequent +months, until I was tired, and found the proportions still the same. +Since then I have heard that they have declared for a revisal of these +laws: but I know of nothing done. It appears as if the contract that +renovates the world was under no law at all. From this we may take our +estimate of the havoc that has been made through all the relations of +life. With the Jacobins of France, vague intercourse is without +reproach; marriage is reduced to the vilest concubinage; children are +encouraged to cut the throats of their parents; mothers are taught that +tenderness is no part of their character, and, to demonstrate their +attachment to their party, that they ought to make no scruple to rake +with their bloody hands in the bowels of those who came from their own. + +To all this let us join the practice of _cannibalism_, with which, in +the proper terms, and with the greatest truth, their several factions +accuse each other. By cannibalism I mean their devouring, as a nutriment +of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of those they have murdered, +their drinking the blood of their victims, and forcing the victims +themselves to drink the blood of their kindred slaughtered before their +faces. By cannibalism I mean also to signify all their nameless, +unmanly, and abominable insults on the bodies of those they slaughter. + +As to those whom they suffer to die a natural death, they do not permit +them to enjoy the last consolations of mankind, or those rights of +sepulture which indicate hope, and which mere Nature has taught to +mankind, in all countries, to soothe the afflictions and to cover the +infirmity of mortal condition. They disgrace men in the entry into life, +they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course of it, and they +deprive them of all comfort at the conclusion of their dishonored and +depraved existence. Endeavoring to persuade the people that they are no +better than beasts, the whole body of their institution tends to make +them beasts of prey, furious and savage. For this purpose the active +part of them is disciplined into a ferocity which has no parallel. To +this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, unfashioned virtues +which accompany the vices, where the whole are left to grow up together +in the rankness of uncultivated Nature. But nothing is left to Nature in +their systems. + +The same discipline which hardens their hearts relaxes their morals. +Whilst courts of justice were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and +silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, +there were no fewer than nineteen or twenty theatres, great and small, +most of them kept open at the public expense, and all of them crowded +every night. Among the gaunt, haggard forms of famine and nakedness, +amidst the yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the cries of +despair, the song, the dance, the mimic scene, the buffoon laughter, +went on as regularly as in the gay hour of festive peace. I have it from +good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder, and the +gaping planks that poured down blood on the spectators, the space was +hired out for a show of dancing dogs. I think, without concert, we have +made the very same remark, on reading some of their pieces, which, being +written for other purposes, let us into a view of their social life. It +struck us that the habits of Paris had no resemblance to the finished +virtues, or to the polished vice, and elegant, though not blameless +luxury, of the capital of a great empire. Their society was more like +that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier,--of a lewd tavern for +the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, bravoes, smugglers, +and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastic players, the +refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted +verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blasphemous songs +proper to the brutal and hardened course of life belonging to that sort +of wretches. This system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly +and moral society, and is in its neighborhood unsafe. If great bodies of +that kind were anywhere established in a bordering territory, we should +have a right to demand of their governments the suppression of such a +nuisance. What are we to do, if the government and the whole community +is of the same description? Yet that government has thought proper to +invite ours to lay by its unjust hatred, and to listen to the voice of +humanity as taught by their example. + +The operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to +have recourse to the true ones. In the intercourse between nations, we +are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much +weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not act much +more wisely, when we trust to the interests of men as guaranties of +their engagements. The interests frequently tear to pieces the +engagements, and the passions trample upon both. Entirely to trust to +either is to disregard our own safety, or not to know mankind. Men are +not tied to one another by papers and seals. They are led to associate +by resemblances, by conformities, by sympathies. It is with nations as +with individuals. Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between nation and +nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. +They have more than the force of treaties in themselves. They are +obligations written in the heart. They approximate men to men without +their knowledge, and sometimes against their intentions. The secret, +unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse holds them +together, even when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to +equivocate, scuffle, and fight about the terms of their written +obligations. + +As to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence, it is the sole +means of justice amongst nations. Nothing can banish it from the world. +They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon +themselves. But it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to +mitigate those evils which we are unable to remove. The conformity and +analogy of which I speak, incapable, like everything else, of preserving +perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to +facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the +rancor of their quarrels. With this similitude, peace is more of peace, +and war is less of war. I will go further. There have been periods of +time in which communities apparently in peace with each other have been +more perfectly separated than in later times many nations in Europe have +been in the course of long and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in +the similitude throughout Europe of religion, laws, and manners. At +bottom, these are all the same. The writers on public law have often +called this _aggregate_ of nations a commonwealth. They had reason. It +is virtually one great state, having the same basis of general law, with +some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments. The +nations of Europe have had the very same Christian religion, agreeing in +the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the +subordinate doctrines. The whole of the polity and economy of every +country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was drawn +from the old Germanic or Gothic Custumary,--from the feudal +institutions, which must be considered as an emanation from that +Custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and +discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the several orders, with +or without a monarch, (which are called States,) in every European +country; the strong traces of which, where monarchy predominated, were +never wholly extinguished or merged in despotism. In the few places +where monarchy was cast off, the spirit of European monarchy was still +left. Those countries still continued countries of States,--that is, of +classes, orders, and distinctions, such as had before subsisted, or +nearly so. Indeed, the force and form of the institution called States +continued in greater perfection in those republican communities than +under monarchies. From all those sources arose a system of manners and +of education which was nearly similar in all this quarter of the +globe,--and which softened, blended, and harmonized the colors of the +whole. There was little difference in the form of the universities for +the education of their youth, whether with regard to faculties, to +sciences, or to the more liberal and elegant kinds of erudition. From +this resemblance in the modes of intercourse, and in the whole form and +fashion of life, no citizen of Europe could be altogether an exile in +any part of it. There was nothing more than a pleasing variety to +recreate and instruct the mind, to enrich the imagination, and to +meliorate the heart. When a man travelled or resided, for health, +pleasure, business, or necessity, from his own country, he never felt +himself quite abroad. + +The whole body of this new scheme of manners, in support of the new +scheme of polities, I consider as a strong and decisive proof of +determined ambition and systematic hostility. I defy the most refining +ingenuity to invent any other cause for the total departure of the +Jacobin Republic from every one of the ideas and usages, religious, +legal, moral, or social, of this civilized world, and for her tearing +herself from its communion with such studied violence, but from a formed +resolution of keeping no terms with that world. It has not been, as has +been falsely and insidiously represented, that these miscreants had only +broke with their old government. They made a schism with the whole +universe, and that schism extended to almost everything, great and +small. For one, I wish, since it is gone thus far, that the breach had +been so complete as to make all intercourse impracticable: but, partly +by accident, partly by design, partly from the resistance of the matter, +enough is left to preserve intercourse, whilst amity is destroyed or +corrupted in its principle. + +This violent breach of the community of Europe we must conclude to have +been made (even if they had not expressly declared it over and over +again) either to force mankind into an adoption of their system or to +live in perpetual enmity with a community the most potent we have ever +known. Can any person imagine, that, in offering to mankind this +desperate alternative, there is no indication of a hostile mind, because +men in possession of the ruling authority are supposed to have a right +to act without coercion in their own territories? As to the right of +men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, +no such right exists. Men are never in a state of _total_ independence +of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it +conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action +without its having some effect upon others, or, of course, without +producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The +_situations_ in which men relatively stand produce the rules and +principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in +exacting it. + +Distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men; +but it often renders their exercise impracticable. The same circumstance +of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system in any +community less pernicious. But there are situations where this +difficulty does not occur, and in which, therefore, those duties are +obligatory and these rights are to be asserted. It has ever been the +method of public jurists to draw a great part of the analogies on which +they form the law of nations from the principles of law which prevail in +civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely positive. Those +which are rather conclusions of legal reason than matters of statutable +provision belong to universal equity, and are universally applicable. +Almost the whole praetorian law is such. There is a _law of neighborhood_ +which does not leave a man perfect master on his own ground. When a +neighbor sees a _new erection_, in the nature of a nuisance, set up at +his door, he has a right to represent it to the judge, who, on his part, +has a right to order the work to be stayed, or, if established, to be +removed. On this head the parent law is express and clear, and has made +many wise provisions, which, without destroying, regulate and restrain +the right of _ownership_ by the right of _vicinage_. No _innovation_ is +permitted that may redound, even secondarily, to the prejudice of a +neighbor. The whole doctrine of that important head of praetorian law, +"_De novi operis nunciatione_," is founded on the principle, that no +_new_ use should be made of a man's private liberty of operating upon +his private property, from whence a detriment may be justly apprehended +by his neighbor. This law of denunciation is prospective. It is to +anticipate what is called _damnum infectum_ or _damnum nondum factum_, +that is, a damage justly apprehended, but not actually done. Even before +it is clearly known whether the innovation be damageable or not, the +judge is competent to issue a prohibition to innovate until the point +can be determined. This prompt interference is grounded on principles +favorable to both parties. It is preventive of mischief difficult to be +repaired, and of ill blood difficult to be softened. The rule of law, +therefore, which comes before the evil is amongst the very best parts of +equity, and justifies the promptness of the remedy; because, as it is +well observed, "_Res damni infecti celeritatem desiderat, et periculosa +est dilatio_." This right of denunciation does not hold, when things +continue, however inconveniently to the neighborhood, according to the +_ancient_ mode. For there is a sort of presumption against novelty, +drawn out of a deep consideration of human nature and human affairs; and +the maxim of jurisprudence is well laid down, "_Vetustas pro lege semper +habetur_." + +Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there is no constituted +judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself +is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assertor of its own +rights, or, remedially, their avenger. Neighbors are presumed to take +cognizance of each other's acts. "_Vicini vicinorum facta praesumuntur +seire_." This principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations as +of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of Europe a duty +to know and a right to prevent any capital innovation which may amount +to the erection of a dangerous nuisance.[32] Of the importance of that +innovation, and the mischief of that nuisance, they are, to be sure, +bound to judge not litigiously: but it is in their competence to judge. +They have uniformly acted on this right. What in civil society is a +ground of action in politic society is a ground of war. But the exercise +of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence. As suits +in civil society, so war in the political, must ever be a matter of +great deliberation. It is not this or that particular proceeding, picked +out here and there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There must be +an aggregate of mischief. There must be marks of deliberation; there +must be traces of design; there must be indications of malice; there +must be tokens of ambition. There must be force in the body where they +exist; there must be energy in the mind. When all these circumstances +combine, or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicinity calls +for the exercise of its competence: and the rules of prudence do not +restrain, but demand it. + +In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory, by +the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar for +such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers as never infested the world, +I am so far from aggravating, that I have fallen infinitely short of the +evil. No man who has attended to the particulars of what has been done +in France, and combined them with the principles there asserted, can +possibly doubt it. When I compare with this great cause of nations the +trifling points of honor, the still more contemptible points of +interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes +about precedency, the lowering or the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in +a hundred or two of wildcat-skins on the other side of the globe, which +have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand +astonished at those persons who do not feel a resentment, not more +natural than politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous +compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and who are not alarmed +with what it threatens to their safety. + +I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with our declaration at +Whitehall in the beginning of this war, that the vicinage of Europe had +not only a right, but an indispensable duty and an exigent interest, to +denunciate this new work, before it had produced the danger we have so +sorely felt, and which we shall long feel. The example of what is done +by France is too important not to have a vast and extensive influence; +and that example, backed with its power, must bear with great force on +those who are near it, especially on those who shall recognize the +pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not +an old structure, which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute +of the original end and design with which it had been so fashioned. It +is a recent wrong, and can plead no prescription. It violates the rights +upon which not only the community of France, but those on which all +communities are founded. The principles on which they proceed are +_general_ principles, and are as true in England as in any other +country. They who (though with the purest intentions) recognize the +authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle justify their +acts, and establish them as precedents. It is a question not between +France and England; it is a question between property and force. The +property claims; and its claim has been allowed. The property of the +nation is the nation. They who massacre, plunder, and expel the body of +the proprietary are murderers and robbers. The state, in its essence, +must be moral and just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper +should be accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be +lamented: but this notwithstanding, the body of the commonwealth may +remain in all its integrity and be perfectly sound in its composition. +The present case is different. It is not a revolution in government. It +is not the victory of party over party. It is a destruction and +decomposition of the whole society; which never can be made of right by +any faction, however powerful, nor without terrible consequences to all +about it, both in the act and in the example. This pretended republic is +founded in crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and +robbery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at +peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it. + +Mere locality does not constitute a body politic. Had Cade and his gang +got possession of London, they would not have been the lord mayor, +aldermen, and common council. The body politic of France existed in the +majesty of its throne, in the dignity of its nobility, in the honor of +its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its +magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed property +in the several bailliages, in the respect due to its movable substance +represented by the corporations of the kingdom. All these particular +_molecules_ united form the great mass of what is truly the body politic +in all countries. They are so many deposits and receptacles of justice; +because they can only exist by justice. Nation is a moral essence, not a +geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator. France, +though out of her territorial possession, exists; because the sole +possible claimant, I mean the proprietary, and the government to which +the proprietary adheres, exists and claims. God forbid, that if you were +expelled from your house by ruffians and assassins, that I should call +the material walls, doors, and windows of ---- the ancient and honorable +family of ----! Am I to transfer to the intruders, who, not content to +turn you out naked to the world, would rob you of your very name, all +the esteem and respect I owe to you? The Regicides in France are not +France. France is out of her bounds, but the kingdom is the same. + +To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let us suppose a case, which, +after what has happened, we cannot think absolutely impossible, though +the augury is to be abominated, and the event deprecated with our most +ardent prayers. Let us suppose, then, that our gracious sovereign was +sacrilegiously murdered; his exemplary queen, at the head of the +matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner; that those +princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the ornaments of the +country, and who are the leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth of +their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious death, with hundreds of +others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the first distinction; that the +Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, princes the hope and pride of the +nation, with all their brethren, were forced to fly from the knives of +assassins; that the whole body of our excellent clergy were either +massacred or robbed of all and transported; the Christian religion, in +all its denominations, forbidden and persecuted; the law totally, +fundamentally, and in all its parts, destroyed; the judges put to death +by revolutionary tribunals; the peers and commons robbed to the last +acre of their estates, massacred, if they stayed, or obliged to seek +life in flight, in exile, and in beggary; that the whole landed property +should share the very same fate; that every military and naval officer +of honor and rank, almost to a man, should be placed in the same +description of confiscation and exile; that the principal merchants and +bankers should be drawn out, as from an hen-coop, for slaughter; that +the citizens of our greatest and most flourishing cities, when the hand +and the machinery of the hangman were not found sufficient, should have +been collected in the public squares and massacred by thousands with +cannon; if three hundred thousand others should have been doomed to a +situation worse than death in noisome and pestilential prisons. In such +a case, is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? +Would this be the England that you and I, and even strangers, admired, +honored, loved, and cherished? Would not the exiles of England alone be +my government and my fellow-citizens? Would not their places of refuge +be my temporary country? Would not all my duties and all my affections +be there, and there only? Should I consider myself as a traitor to my +country, and deserving of death, if I knocked at the door and heart of +every potentate in Christendom to succor my friends, and to avenge them +on their enemies? Could I in any way show myself more a patriot? What +should I think of those potentates who insulted their suffering +brethren,--who treated them as vagrants, or at least as mendicants,--and +could find no allies, no friends, but in regicide murderers and robbers? +What ought I to think and feel, if, being geographers instead of kings, +they recognized the desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers +polluted with blood, of this geometrical measurement, as the honorable +member of Europe called England? In that condition, what should we think +of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power afforded us a churlish +and treacherous hospitality, if they should invite us to join the +standard of our king, our laws, and our religion,--if they should give +us a direct promise of protection,--if, after all this, taking advantage +of our deplorable situation, which left us no choice, they were to treat +us as the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries,--if they were to send us +far from the aid of our king and our suffering country, to squander us +away in the most pestilential climates for a venal enlargement of their +own territories, for the purpose of trucking them, when obtained, with +those very robbers and murderers they had called upon us to oppose with +our blood? What would be our sentiments, if in that miserable service we +were not to be considered either as English, or as Swedes, Dutch, Danes, +but as outcasts of the human race? Whilst we were fighting those battles +of their interest and as their soldiers, how should we feel, if we were +to be excluded from all their cartels? How must we feel, if the pride +and flower of the English nobility and gentry, who might escape the +pestilential clime and the devouring sword, should, if taken prisoners, +be delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned as rebels, as +traitors, as the vilest of all criminals, by tribunals formed of Maroon +negro slaves, covered over with the blood of their masters, who were +made free and organized into judges for their robberies and murders? +What should we feel under this inhuman, insulting, and barbarous +protection of Muscovites, Swedes, or Hollanders? Should we not obtest +Heaven, and whatever justice there is yet on earth? Oppression makes +wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which +is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the voice of sacred +misery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of +prophecy and inspiration. In that bitterness of soul, in that +indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would +not persecuted English loyalty cry out with an awful warning voice, and +denounce the destruction that waits on monarchs who consider fidelity +to them as the most degrading of all vices, who suffer it to be punished +as the most abominable of all crimes, and who have no respect but for +rebels, traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose crimes have +broke their chains? Would not this warm language of high indignation +have more of sound reason in it, more of real affection, more of true +attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers who would hush monarchs +to sleep in the arms of death? Let them be well convinced, that, if ever +this example should prevail in its whole extent, it will have its full +operation. Whilst kings stand firm on their base, though under that base +there is a sure-wrought mine, there will not be wanting to their levees +a single person of those who are attached to their fortune, and not to +their persons or cause; but hereafter none will support a tottering +throne. Some will fly for fear of being crushed under the ruin; some +will join in making it. They will seek, in the destruction of royalty, +fame and power and wealth and the homage of kings, with Reubell, with +Carnot, with Revelliere, and with the Merlins and the Talliens, rather +than suffer exile and beggary with the Condes, or the Broglies, the +Castries, the D'Avarays, the Serents, the Cazales, and the long line of +loyal, suffering, patriot nobility, or to be butchered with the oracles +and the victims of the laws, the D'Ormessons, the D'Espremesnils, and +the Malesherbes. This example we shall give, if, instead of adhering to +our fellows in a cause which is an honor to us all, we abandon the +lawful government and lawful corporate body of France, to hunt for a +shameful and ruinous fraternity with this odious usurpation that +disgraces civilized society and the human race. + +And is, then, example nothing? It is everything. Example is the school +of mankind, and they will learn at no other. This war is a war against +that example. It is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or even for the +property, virtue, fidelity of France. It is a war for George the Third, +for Francis the Second, and for all the dignity, property, honor, +virtue, and religion of England, of Germany, and of all nations. + +I know that all I have said of the systematic unsociability of this +new-invented species of republic, and the impossibility of preserving +peace, is answered by asserting that the scheme of manners, morals, and +even of maxims and principles of state, is of no weight in a question of +peace or war between communities. This doctrine is supported by example. +The case of Algiers is cited, with an hint, as if it were the stronger +case. I should take no notice of this sort of inducement, if I had found +it only where first it was. I do not want respect for those from whom I +first heard it; but, having no controversy at present with them, I only +think it not amiss to rest on it a little, as I find it adopted, with +much more of the same kind, by several of those on whom such reasoning +had formerly made no apparent impression. If it had no force to prevent +us from submitting to this necessary war, it furnishes no better ground +for our making an unnecessary and ruinous peace. + +This analogical argument drawn from the case of Algiers would lead us a +good way. The fact is, we ourselves with a little cover, others more +directly, pay a _tribute_ to the Republic of Algiers. Is it meant to +reconcile us to the payment of a _tribute_ to the French Republic? That +this, with other things more ruinous, will be demanded, hereafter, I +little doubt; but for the present this will not be avowed,--though our +minds are to be gradually prepared for it. In truth, the arguments from +this case are worth little, even to those who approve the buying an +Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many things which men do not +approve, that they must do to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence +that they are to act in the same manner in all cases is turning +necessity into a law. Upon what is matter of prudence, the argument +concludes the contrary way. Because we have done one humiliating act, we +ought with infinite caution to admit more acts of the same nature, lest +humiliation should become our habitual state. Matters of prudence are +under the dominion of circumstances, and not of logical analogies. It is +absurd to take it otherwise. + +I, for one, do more than doubt the policy of this kind of convention +with Algiers. On those who think as I do the argument _ad hominem_ can +make no sort of impression. I know something of the constitution and +composition of this very extraordinary republic. It has a constitution, +I admit, similar to the present tumultuous military tyranny of France, +by which an handful of obscure ruffians domineer over a fertile country +and a brave people. For the composition, too, I admit the Algerine +community resembles that of France,--being formed out of the very scum, +scandal, disgrace, and pest of the Turkish Asia. The Grand Seignior, to +disburden the country, suffers the Dey to recruit in his dominions the +corps of janizaries, or asaphs, which form the Directory and Council of +Elders of the African Republic one and indivisible. But notwithstanding +this resemblance, which I allow, I never shall so far injure the +Janizarian Republic of Algiers as to put it in comparison, for every +sort of crime, turpitude, and oppression, with the Jacobin Republic of +Paris. There is no question with me to which of the two I should choose +to be a neighbor or a subject. But. situated as I am, I am in no danger +of becoming to Algiers either the one or the other. It is not so in my +relation to the atheistical fanatics of France. I _am_ their neighbor; I +_may_ become their subject. Have the gentlemen who borrowed this happy +parallel no idea of the different conduct to be held with regard to the +very same evil at an immense distance and when it is at your door? when +its power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble as its +distance is remote? when there is a barrier of language and usages, +which prevents corruption through certain old correspondences and +habitudes, from the contagion of the horrible novelties that are +introduced into everything else? I can contemplate without dread a royal +or a national tiger on the borders of Pegu. I can look at him with an +easy curiosity, as prisoner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. +But if, by _Habeas Corpus_, or otherwise, he was to come into the lobby +of the House of Commons whilst your door was open, any of you would be +more stout than wise who would not gladly make your escape out of the +back windows. I certainly should dread more from a wild-cat in my +bedchamber than from all the lions that roar in the deserts behind +Algiers. But in this parallel it is the cat that is at a distance, and +the lions and tigers that are in our antechambers and our lobbies. +Algiers is not near; Algiers is not powerful; Algiers is not our +neighbor; Algiers is not infectious. Algiers, whatever it may be, is an +old creation; and we have good data to calculate all the mischief to be +apprehended from it. When I find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will +tell you what I think of that point. In the mean time, the case quoted +from the Algerine Reports will not apply as authority. We shall put it +out of court; and so far as that goes, let the counsel for the Jacobin +peace take nothing by their motion. + +When we voted, as you and I did, with many more whom you and I respect +and love, to resist this enemy, we were providing for dangers that were +direct, home, pressing, and not remote, contingent, uncertain, and +formed upon loose analogies. We judged of the danger with which we were +menaced by Jacobin France from the whole tenor of her conduct, not from +one or two doubtful or detached acts or expressions. I not only +concurred in the idea of combining with Europe in this war, but to the +best of my power even stimulated ministers to that conjunction of +interests and of efforts. I joined them with all my soul, on the +principles contained in that manly and masterly state-paper which I have +two or three times referred to,[33] and may still more frequently +hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with +this piece. The historic facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus +painters write their names at Co." + +Various persons may concur in the same measure on various grounds. They +may be various, without being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I +thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the Regicide upon our +ally of Holland a good ground of war. I think his manifest attempt to +overturn the balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good ground +of war I consider his declaration of war on his Majesty and his kingdom. +But though I have taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing +more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. +Long before their acts of aggression and their declaration of war, the +faction in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body of principles +and maxims, and had regularly and systematically acted on them, by which +she virtually had put herself in a posture which was in itself a +declaration of war against mankind. + +It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of +the people are tumultuous for peace, and that ministers pretend +negotiation to amuse us. This they have learned from the language of +many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of +whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But I, who +think the ministers unfortunately to be but too serious in their +proceedings, find myself obliged to say a little more on this subject of +the popular opinion. + +Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves, it is proper, that, +from our serious deliberation, they may be worth quoting. It is without +reason we praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the +discretion of the crown the awful trust of war and peace, if the +ministers of the crown virtually return it again into our hands. The +trust was placed there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular +rashness in plunging into wars, and against the effects of popular +dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in getting out of them as imprudently as +we might first engage in them. To have no other measure in judging of +those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw +us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution +was formed to avoid. + +It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our desire takes a measure +contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. He who does not stay the +hand of suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that to be +instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved. Information is an +advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. He that is bound to +act in the dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears evident to +our governors that our desires and our interests are at variance, they +ought not to gratify the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen +are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we +can possibly command. They have a whole before them, which we can +contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary +relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers, but our natural +guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty +force; but reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may fairly say, +irresistible. + +I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the +disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case +silence is manly, and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the +principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I take the +distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part +of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of +policy, on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to +be concealed. They who have not the whole cause before them, call them +politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges. +The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side, ought to be +presented. This ought to be done; and it is all that can be done. When +we have our true situation distinctly presented to us, if then we +resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist the admonitions +of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the hands of our potent and +irreconcilable foes, then, and not till then, the ministers stand +acquitted before God and man for whatever may come. + +Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had so full and free a +discussion as it requires, I mean to omit none of the points which seem +to me necessary for consideration, previous to an arrangement which is +forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe. In the course, +therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose +the following questions to your serious thoughts.--1. Whether the +present system, which stands for a government, in France, be such as in +peace and war affects the neighboring states in a manner different from +the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country?--2. +Whether that system, supposing its views hostile to other nations, +possesses any means of being hurtful to them peculiar to itself?--3. +Whether there has been lately such a change in France as to alter the +nature of its system, or its effect upon other powers?--4. Whether any +public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied +powers, which stand in the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the +right and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in France?--5. What +the state of the other powers of Europe will be with respect to each +other and their colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace?--6. +Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of making that kind of +peace? + +These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the application of the +several matters of fact and topics of argument, that occur in this vast +discussion, to certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine myself +to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner +as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings +and relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of my letter; but +before I have done, let me say one word in apology for myself. + +In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man +living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of +my oldest friends (and I wish I could say it of more of them) make a +part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain +explore." In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on the +public than the exclusion of one of them. But I drive away that, with +other melancholy thoughts. A great deal ought to be said upon that +subject, or nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom my friends +who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred ought +to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they have +them all. They have administered to me the only consolation I am capable +of receiving, which is, to know that no individual will suffer by my +thirty years' service to the public. If things should give us the +comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall be found, I was going to +say fighting, (that would be foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. +Pitt. I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system +can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the +man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is +the man to repair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is only +when they appear to me to have no resemblance to acts of his. But let +him not have a confidence in himself which no human abilities can +warrant. His abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for any +man) to those which are opposed to him. But if we look to him as our +security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured +that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will +not agree. With a Regicide peace the king cannot long have a minister to +serve him, nor the minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in +reward of the royal and the private virtues of our sovereign, should +call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of +amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same +Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and +not, as I conceive, on light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning +sovereign, nor any minister he has or can have, nor his successor +apparent, nor any of those who may be called to serve him, with what +appears to me a false state of their situation. We cannot have them and +that peace together. + +I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between +several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at +the head of ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am +sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a +Jacobin existence in France. At one time he and all Europe seemed to +feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so +many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this +year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot +move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is preparing for us +the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden era, or the +commencement of some new era that must be denominated from some new +metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with +freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as +in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is +a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he +may speak it the longer. But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, +what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before +you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity, +calculate on six months of life. What I say I _must_ say at once. +Whatever I write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the +weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few +days I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene +of the world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for everything +that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action. If the +rawest tyro in politics has been influenced by the authority of my gray +hairs, and led by anything in my speeches or my writings to enter into +this war, he has a right to call upon me to know why I have changed my +opinions, or why, when those I voted with have adopted better notions, I +persevere in exploded error. + +When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those I respect in every +degree short of superstition, I am obliged to give my reasons fully. I +cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is +not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the +same parallel. That reason is an _amicus curiae_ who speaks _de plano_, +not _pro tribunali_. It is a friend who makes an useful suggestion to +the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges +its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I +have chalked out in my letters that follow this. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] "Mussabat tacito medicina timore." + +[23] Mr. Bird, sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul. + +[24] Boissy d'Anglas. + +[25] "This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of +that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains, and +the manner of announcing them, are remote from any disposition for +peace. + +"The inadmissible pretension is there avowed of appropriating to France +all that the laws actually existing there may have comprised under the +denomination of French territory. To a demand such as this is added an +express declaration that no proposal contrary to it will be made or even +listened to: and this, under the pretence of an internal regulation, the +provisions of which are wholly foreign to all other nations. + +"While these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the +king but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary. + +"Whenever his enemies shall manifest more pacific sentiments, his +Majesty will at all times be eager to concur in them, by lending +himself, in concert with his allies, to all such measures as shall be +best calculated to reestablish general tranquillity on conditions just, +honorable, and permanent: either by the establishment of a congress, +which has been so often and so happily the means of restoring peace to +Europe; or by a preliminary discussion of the principles which may be +proposed, on either side, as a foundation of a general pacification; or, +lastly, by an impartial examination of any other way which may be +pointed out to him for arriving at the same salutary end. + +"_Downing Street, April 10th_, 1796." + +[26] _Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the +Country_. + + "EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY. + + "Different journals have advanced that an English + plenipotentiary had reached Paris, and had presented himself to + the Executive Directory, but that, his propositions not having + appeared satisfactory, he had received orders instantly to quit + France. + + "All these assertions are equally false. + + "The notices given in the English papers of a minister having + been sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to + recollection the overtures of Mr. Wickham to the ambassador of + the Republic at Basle, and the rumors circulated relative to the + mission of Mr. Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The + _insignificance_, or rather the _subtle duplicity_, the PUNIC + _style_ of Mr. Wickham's note, is not forgotten. According to + the partisans of the English ministry, it was to Paris that Mr. + Hammond was to come to speak for peace. When his destination + became public, and it was known that he went to Prussia, the + same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and not + withstanding the object, now well known, of this negotiation was + to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republic, and + to return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to + its engagements, repulsed these _perfidious_ propositions. But + in converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the + English ministry joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to + France _that of justifying the continuance of the war in the + eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it + on the French, government_. Such was also the aim of Mr. + Wickham's note. _Such is still, that of the notices given at + this time in the English papers_. + + This aim will appear evident, if we reflect how difficult it is + that the ambitious government of England should sincerely wish + for a, peace that would _snatch from it its maritime + preponderancy, would reestablish the freedom of the seas, would + give a new impulse to the Spanish, Dutch, and French marines_, + and would carry to the highest degree of prosperity the industry + and commerce of those nations in, which it has always found + _rivals_, and which it has considered as _enemies_ of its + commerce, when they were tired of being its _dupes_. + + "_But there will no longer be any credit given to the pacific + intentions of the English ministry when it is known that its + gold and its intrigues, its open practices and its insinuations, + besiege more than ever the Cabinet of Vienna, and are one of the + principal obstacles to the negotiation which, that Cabinet would + of itself be induced to enter on for peace_. + + "They will no longer _be credited_, finally, when the moment of + the rumor of these overtures being circulated is considered. + _The English nation supports impatiently the continuance of the + war; a reply must be made to its complaints, its reproaches_: + the Parliament is about to reopen, its sittings; the mouths of + the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut, the + demand of new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these + results, it is necessary to be enabled to advance, that the + French government refuses every reasonable proposition of + peace." + + + +[27] "In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public +order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without +number,--by arbitrary imprisonments,--by massacres which cannot be +remembered without horror,--and at length by the execrable murder of a +just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who +with, an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her royal +consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious +death."--"They [the Allies] have had to encounter acts of aggression +without pretext, open violations of all treaties, unprovoked +declarations of war,--in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or +violence could effect, for the purpose, so openly avowed, of subverting +all the institutions of society, and of extending' over all the nations +of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France. This +state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the +surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the right, +without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil +which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all +property, and which attacks the Fundamental principles by which mankind +is united in the bonds of civil society."--"The king would propose none +other than equitable and moderate conditions: not such as the expenses, +the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his +Majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, +with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own +security and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His Majesty desires +nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain +endeavored to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced +by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and +the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in +misery and disgraced all civilized nations."--"The king promises on his +part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the +course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose) +security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical +government, shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary anarchy: of that +anarchy which, has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, +dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, +confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the +most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all +possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of the +people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces +for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their _lawful +sovereign_." + + Declaration sent by his Majesty's command to the commanders of + his Majesty's fleets and armies employed against France and to + his Majesty's ministers employed at foreign courts. _Whitehall, + Oct_. 29, 1793 + + + +[28] "Ut lethargicus hic, cum fit pugil, et medicum urget."--HOB. + +[29] See the Declaration. + +[30] See Declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793. + +[31] Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this +principle, as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous +articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they +should enter. "La Convention Nationale, apres avoir entendu le rapport +de ses comites de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques reunis, +fidele au _principe de souverainete de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas de +reconnaitre aucune institution qui y porte atteinte_" &c., &c.--_Decree +sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1702_. And see the subsequent +proclamation. + +[32] "This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all +the surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the +right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of +an evil which ... attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is +united in the bonds of civil society."--_Declaration 29th Oct., 1793_. + +[33] Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793. + + + + +LETTER II. + +ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER +NATIONS. + + +My dear Sir,--I closed my first letter with serious matter, and I hope +it has employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference +to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recall +your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not +taught me to vary. + +My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter France, +not as a state, but as a faction. The vast territorial extent of that +country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches of +commerce and convention, the whole aggregate mass of what in ordinary +cases constitutes the force of a state, to me were but objects of +secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been +often more than balanced. Great as these things are, they are not what +make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly +dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of +France,--that informs it as a soul,--that stamps upon its ambition, and +upon all its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly +distinguishes them from the same general passions and the same general +views in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which +inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity. +Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to +shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold. +A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the +conflict with this new and unheard-of power, proceed as if they were +engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former contests, or +that they can make peace in the spirit of their former arrangements of +pacification. Here the beaten path is the very reverse of the safe road. + +As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this disorder was not in +its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could +not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that our +first struggle with this evil would also be our last. I never thought we +could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an +object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself +that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not +with its conduct, but with its existence,--convinced that its existence +and its hostility were the same. + +The faction is not local or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it +least appears in action, it is still full of life. In its sleep it +recruits its strength and prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in +the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains +it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders +of men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head. The +centre is there. The circumference is the world of Europe, wherever the +race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is militant; +in France it is triumphant. In France is the bank of deposit and the +bank of circulation of all the pernicious principles that are forming in +every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too +mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other +country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause +of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at +least, to the Christian world. + +The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was by most of the +Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner +declared. In the joint manifesto published by the Emperor and the King +of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest +terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to +them, of classing those monarchs with the first benefactors of mankind. +This manifesto was published, as they themselves express it, "to lay +open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, +their intentions, and the _disinterestedness_ of their personal views: +taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order +amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to _each_ state its +religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real +constitution."--"On this ground they hoped that all empires and all +states would be unanimous, and, becoming the firm guardians of the +happiness of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their efforts to +rescue a numerous nation from its own fury, to preserve Europe from the +return of barbarism, and the universe from the subversion and anarchy +with which it was threatened." The whole of that noble performance ought +to be read at the first meeting of any congress which may assemble for +the purpose of pacification. In that piece "these powers expressly +renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and confine themselves +to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and +politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation, +and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede, +as a part of the commonwealth of Europe. To these principles, with some +trifling exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede.[34] And all +our friends who took office acceded to the ministry, (whether wisely or +not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the +principles of that declaration. + +As long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force +would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations; but +when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new +direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be +purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is +a truth that cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the +distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw +the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives +to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for its +objects, it was a _civil war_; and as such they pursued it. It is a war +between the partisans of the ancient civil, moral, and political order +of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means +to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign empire over +other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning +with the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured _the +centre of Europe_; and that secured, they knew, that, whatever might be +the event of battles and sieges, their _cause_ was victorious. Whether +its territory had a little more or a little less peeled from its +surface, or whether an island or two was detached from its commerce, to +them was of little moment. The conquest of France was a glorious +acquisition. That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities +never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and +dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries. + +They saw it was _a civil war_. It was their business to persuade their +adversaries that it ought to be a _foreign_ war. The Jacobins everywhere +set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with effect in +the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in Europe. Their +task was not difficult. The condition of princes, and sometimes of first +ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk and the +creatures of favor had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes. +They promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues from whence +emoluments might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of +vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so +vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their +habit. They are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended +only by conscience and glory. A large, liberal, and prospective view of +the interests of states passes with them for romance, and the principles +that recommend it for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The +calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons +shame them out of everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object +and in means to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is +nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can +measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten fingers. + +Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps without any principles +at all, they played the game of that faction. There was a beaten road +before them. The powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared +dangerous; the war was easily diverted from France as a faction to +France as a state. The princes were easily taught to slide back into +their old, habitual course of politics. They were easily led to consider +the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their +own buildings, (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a +contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion for +pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their +neighbor's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious +hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the +principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or they +flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new +fortresses and new territories a _defensive_ security. But the security +wanted was against a kind of power which was not so truly dangerous in +its fortresses nor in its territories as in its spirit and its +principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at _defending_ themselves +against a danger from which there can be no security in any _defensive_ +plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis +the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy +people. + +This error obliged them, even in their offensive operations, to adopt a +plan of war against the success of which there was something little +short of mathematical demonstration. They refused to take any step which +might strike at the heart of affairs. They seemed unwilling to wound the +enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole as if they really +wished the conservation of the Jacobin power, as what might be more +favorable than the lawful government to the attainment of the petty +objects they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the +wider and remoter the circle was, the more eagerly they chose it as +their sphere of action in this centrifugal war. The plan they pursued in +its nature demanded great length of time. In its execution, they who +went the nearest way to work were obliged to cover an incredible extent +of country. It left to the enemy every means of destroying this extended +line of weakness. Ill success in any part was sure to defeat the effect +of the whole. This is true of Austria. It is still more true of England. +On this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, +put him but the further off from his object. + +As long as there was any appearance of success, the spirit of +aggrandizement, and consequently the spirit of mutual jealousy, seized +upon all the coalesced powers. Some sought an accession of territory at +the expense of France, some at the expense of each other, some at the +expense of third parties; and when the vicissitude of disaster took its +turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith and +friendship. + +The greatest skill, conducting the greatest military apparatus, has +been employed; but it has been worse than uselessly employed, through +the false policy of the war. The operations of the field suffered by the +errors of the cabinet. If the same spirit continues, when peace is made, +the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it +will be made upon the same false principle. What has been lost in the +field, in the field may be regained. An arrangement of peace in its +nature is a permanent settlement: it is the effect of counsel and +deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a basis +fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those +unforeseen dispensations which the all-wise, but mysterious, Governor of +the world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from ruin. It would +not be pious error, but mad and impious presumption, for any one to +trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance of the rules of +prudence, which are formed upon the known march of the ordinary +providence of God. + +It was not of that sort of war that I was amongst the least +considerable, but amongst the most zealous advisers; and it is not by +the sort of peace now talked of that I wish it concluded. It would +answer no great purpose to enter into the particular errors of the war. +The whole has been but one error. It was but nominally a war of +alliance. As the combined powers pursued it, there was nothing to hold +an alliance together. There could be no tie of _honor_ in a society for +pillage. There could be no tie of a common _interest_, where the object +did not offer such a division amongst the parties as could well give +them a warm concern in the gains of each other, or could, indeed, form +such a body of equivalents as might make one of them willing to abandon +a separate object of his ambition for the gratification of any other +member of the alliance. The partition of Poland offered an object of +spoil in which the parties _might_ agree. They were circumjacent, and +each might take a portion convenient to his own territory. They might +dispute about the value of their several shares, but the contiguity to +each of the demandants always furnished the means of an adjustment. +Though hereafter the world will have cause to rue this iniquitous +measure, and they most who were most concerned in it, for the moment +there was wherewithal in the object to preserve peace amongst +confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did not afford the same +facilities for accommodation. What might satisfy the House of Austria in +a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the +King of Prussia. What might be desired by Great Britain in the West +Indies must be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt as an interest at +Vienna, and it would be felt as something worse than a negative interest +at Madrid. Austria, long possessed with unwise and dangerous designs on +Italy, could not be very much in earnest about the conservation of the +old patrimony of the House of Savoy; and Sardinia, who owed to an +Italian force all her means of shutting out France from Italy, of which +she has been supposed to hold the key, would not purchase the means of +strength upon one side by yielding it on the other: she would not +readily give the possession of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No +Continental power was willing to lose any of its Continental objects for +the increase of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Britain +would not give up any of the objects she sought for, as the means of an +increase to her naval power, to further their aggrandizement. + +The moment this war came to be considered as a war merely of profit, the +actual circumstances are such that it never could become really a war of +alliance. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things are put +upon their right bottom. + +I don't find it denied, that, when a treaty is entered into for peace, a +demand will be made on the Regicides to surrender a great part of their +conquests on the Continent. 'Will they, in the present state of the war, +make that surrender without an equivalent? This Continental cession must +of course be made in favor of that party in the alliance that has +suffered losses. That party has nothing to furnish towards an +equivalent. What equivalent, for instance, has Holland to offer, who has +lost her all? What equivalent can come from the Emperor, every part of +whose territories contiguous to France is already within the pale of the +Regicide dominion? What equivalent has Sardinia to offer for Savoy, and +for Nice,--I may say, for her whole being? What has she taken from the +faction of France? She has lost very near her all, and she has gained +nothing. What equivalent has Spain to give? Alas! she has already paid +for her own ransom the fund of equivalent,--and a dreadful equivalent it +is, to England and to herself. But I put Spain out of the question: she +is a province of the Jacobin empire, and she must make peace or war +according to the orders she receives from the Directory of Assassins. In +effect and substance, her crown is a fief of Regicide. + +Whence, then, can the compensation be demanded? Undoubtedly from that +power which alone has made some conquests. That power is England. Will +the Allies, then, give away their ancient patrimony, that England may +keep islands in the West Indies? They never can protract the war in good +earnest for that object; nor can they act in concert with us, in our +refusal to grant anything towards their redemption. In that case we are +thus situated: either we must give Europe, bound hand and foot, to +France, or we must quit the West Indies without any one object, great or +small, towards indemnity and security. I repeat it, without any +advantage whatever: because, supposing that our conquest could comprise +all that France ever possessed in the tropical America, it never can +amount in any fair estimation to a fair equivalent for Holland, for the +Austrian Netherlands, for the Lower Germany,--that is, for the whole +ancient kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of Regicide, +to say nothing of almost all Italy, under the same barbarous domination. +If we treat in the present situation of things, we have nothing in our +hands that can redeem Europe. Nor is the Emperor, as I have observed, +more rich in the fund of equivalents. + +If we look to our stock in the Eastern world, our most valuable and +systematic acquisitions are made in that quarter. Is it from France they +are made? France has but one or two contemptible factories, subsisting +by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support +them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the Cape of Good +Hope as the securing of a post of great moment; it does honor to those +who planned and to those who executed that enterprise; but I speak of it +always as comparatively good,--as good as anything can be in a scheme +of war that repels us from a centre, and employs all our forces where +nothing can be finally decisive. But giving, as I freely give, every +possible credit to these Eastern conquests, I ask one question:--On whom +are they made? It is evident, that, if we can keep our Eastern +conquests, we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense +of Holland, our _ally_,--of Holland, the immediate cause of the war, the +nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and not of the Republic which +it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatic +conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that +Holland is reduced) unable to retain them, and which will virtually +leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland +declines still more as a state. She loses so much carrying trade, and +that means of keeping up the small degree of naval power she holds: for +which policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she maintains the +Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In that case, resentment, faction, +and even necessity, will throw her more and more into the power of the +new, mischievous Republic. But on the probable state of Holland I shall +say more, when in this correspondence I come to talk over with you the +state in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe. + +So far as to the East Indies. + +As to the West Indies,--indeed, as to either, if we look for matter of +exchange in order to ransom Europe,--it is easy to show that we have +taken a terribly roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even if, for the +sake of holding conquests there, we should refuse to redeem Holland, +and the Austrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely +as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide ambassador governs at +Madrid,) will see with perfect satisfaction Great Britain sole mistress +of the isles. In truth, it appears to me, that, when we come to balance +our account, we shall find in the proposed peace only the pure, simple, +and unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We shall have the satisfaction of +knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared by the Allies for +support of the Regicide system. We shall reflect at leisure on one great +truth: that it was ten times more easy totally to destroy the system +itself than, when established, it would be to reduce its power,--and +that this republic, most formidable abroad, was of all things the +weakest at home; that her frontier was terrible, her interior feeble; +that it was matter of choice to attack her where she is invincible, and +to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal +disorders. We shall reflect that our plan was good neither for offence +nor defence. + +It would not be at all difficult to prove that an army of an hundred +thousand men, horse, foot, and artillery, might have been employed +against the enemy, on the very soil which he has usurped, at a far less +expense than has been squandered away upon tropical adventures. In these +adventures it was not an enemy we had to vanquish, but a cemetery to +conquer. In carrying on the war in the West Indies, the hostile sword is +merciful, the country in which we engage is the dreadful enemy. There +the European conqueror finds a cruel defeat in the very fruits of his +success. Every advantage is but a new demand on England for recruits to +the West Indian grave. In a West India war, the Regicides have for their +troops a race of fierce barbarians, to whom the poisoned air, in which +our youth inhale certain death, is salubrity and life. To them the +climate is the surest and most faithful of allies. + +Had we carried on the war on the side of France which looks towards the +Channel or the Atlantic, we should have attacked our enemy on his weak +and unarmed side. We should not have to reckon on the loss of a man who +did not fall in battle. We should have an ally in the heart of the +country, who to our hundred thousand would at one time have added eighty +thousand men at the least, and all animated by principle, by enthusiasm, +and by vengeance: motives which secured them to the cause in a very +different manner from some of those allies whom we subsidized with +millions. This ally, (or rather, this principal in the war,) by the +confession of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him than all +his other foes united. Warring there, we should have led our arms to the +capital of Wrong. Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) +of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the royalists, an +impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed +between the enemy and his naval power. We are probably the only nation +who have declined to act against an enemy when it might have been done +in his own country, and who, having an armed, a powerful, and a long +victorious ally in that country, declined all effectual cooeperation, and +suffered him to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war in +France, every advantage that our allies might obtain would be doubled +in its effect. Disasters on the one side might have a fair chance of +being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the main of +our force to bear upon that quarter, all the operations of the British +and Imperial crowns would have been combined. The war would have had +system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But as the war has been +pursued, the operations of the two crowns have not the smallest degree +of mutual bearing or relation. + +Had acquisitions in the West Indies been our object, on success in +France, everything reasonable in those remote parts might be demanded +with decorum and justice and a sure effect. Well might we call for a +recompense in America for those services to which Europe owed its +safety. Having abandoned this obvious policy connected with principle, +we have seen the Regicide power taking the reverse course, and making +real conquests in the West Indies, to which all our dear-bought +advantages (if we could hold them) are mean and contemptible. The +noblest island within the tropics, worth all that we possess put +together, is by the vassal Spaniard delivered into her hands. The island +of Hispaniola (of which we have but one poor corner, by a slippery hold) +is perhaps equal to England in extent, and in fertility is far superior. +The part possessed by Spain of that great island, made for the seat and +centre of a tropical empire, was not improved, to be sure, as the French +division had been, before it was systematically destroyed by the +Cannibal Republic; but it is not only the far larger, but the far more +salubrious and more fertile part. + +It was delivered into the hands of the barbarians, without, as I can +find, any public reclamation on our part, not only in contravention to +one of the fundamental treaties that compose the public law of Europe, +but in defiance of the fundamental colonial policy of Spain herself. +This part of the Treaty of Utrecht was made for great general ends, +unquestionably; but whilst it provided for those general ends, it was in +affirmance of that particular policy. It was not to injure, but to save +Spain, by making a settlement of her estate which prohibited her to +alienate to France. It is her policy not to see the balance of West +Indian power overturned by France or by Great Britain. Whilst the +monarchies subsisted, this unprincipled cession was what the influence +of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon never dared to attempt on +the younger: but cannibal terror has been more powerful than family +influence. The Bourbon monarchy of Spain, is united to the Republic of +France by what may be truly called the ties of blood. + +By this measure the balance of power in the West Indies is totally +destroyed. It has followed the balance of power in Europe. It is not +alone what shall be left nominally to the Assassins that is theirs. +Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes +all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of +putting his feather to the ear of the Directory, to make it unclench the +fist, and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron +gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to +discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter +itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can +neither keep nor hold. No! It cannot even long make war, if the grand +bank and deposit of its force is at all in the West Indies. But here a +scene opens to my view too important to pass by, perhaps too critical to +touch. Is it possible that it should not present itself in all its +relations to a mind habituated to consider either war or peace on a +large scale or as one whole? + +Unfortunately, other ideas have prevailed. A remote, an expensive, a +murderous, and, in the end, an unproductive adventure, carried on upon +ideas of mercantile knight-errantry, without any of the generous +wildness of Quixotism, is considered as sound, solid sense; and a war in +a wholesome climate, a war at our door, a war directly on the enemy, a +war in the heart of his country, a war in concert with an internal ally, +and in combination with the external, is regarded as folly and romance. + +My dear friend, I hold it impossible that these considerations should +have escaped the statesmen on both sides of the water, and on both sides +of the House of Commons. How a question of peace can be discussed +without having them in view I cannot imagine. If you or others see a way +out of these difficulties, I am happy. I see, indeed, a fund from whence +equivalents will be proposed. I see it, but I cannot just now touch it. +It is a question of high moment. It opens another Iliad of woes to +Europe. + +Such is the time proposed for making _a common political peace_ to which +no one circumstance is propitious. As to the grand principle of the +peace, it is left, as if by common consent, wholly out of the question. + +Viewing things in this light, I have frequently sunk into a degree of +despondency and dejection hardly to be described; yet out of the +profoundest depths of this despair, an impulse which I have in vain +endeavored to resist has urged me to raise one feeble cry against this +unfortunate coalition which is formed at home, in order to make a +coalition with France, subversive of the whole ancient order of the +world. No disaster of war, no calamity of season, could ever strike me +with half the horror which I felt from what is introduced to us by this +junction of parties under the soothing name of peace. We are apt to +speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which +dubious wars terminate in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct +contrary. I am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at the +intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able with +deliberation to face the perils of Jacobin fraternity. + +This fraternity is, indeed, so terrible in its nature, and in its +manifest consequences, that there is no way of quieting our +apprehensions about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by +substituting for it, through a sort of periphrasis, something of an +ambiguous quality, and describing such a connection under the terms of +"_the usual relations of peace and amity_." By this means the proposed +fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties which imply no +change in the public law of Europe, and which do not upon system affect +the interior condition of nations. It is confounded with those +conventions in which matters of dispute among sovereign powers are +compromised by the taking off a duty more or less, by the surrender of a +frontier town or a disputed district on the one side or the other, by +pactions in which the pretensions of families are settled, (as by a +conveyancer making family substitutions and successions,) without any +alteration in the laws, manners, religion, privileges, and customs of +the cities or territories which are the subject of such arrangements. + +All this body of old conventions, composing the vast and voluminous +collection called the _Corps Diplomatique_, forms the code or statute +law, as the methodized reasonings of the great publicists and jurists +form the digest and jurisprudence, of the Christian world. In these +treasures are to be found the _usual_ relations of peace and amity in +civilized Europe; and there the relations of ancient France were to be +found amongst the rest. + +The present system in France is not the ancient France. It is not the +ancient France with ordinary ambition and ordinary means. It is not a +new power of an old kind. It is a new power of a new species. When such +a questionable shape is to be admitted for the first time into the +brotherhood of Christendom, it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity to +consider how far it is in its nature alliable with the rest, or whether +"the relations of peace and amity" with this new state are likely to be +of the same nature with the _usual_ relations of the states of Europe. + +The Revolution in France had the relation of France to other nations as +one of its principal objects. The changes made by that Revolution were +not the better to accommodate her to the old and usual relations, but to +produce new ones. The Revolution was made, not to make France free, but +to make her formidable,--not to make her a neighbor, but a +mistress,--not to make her more observant of laws, but to put her in a +condition to impose them. To make France truly formidable, it was +necessary that France should be new-modelled. They who have not +followed the train of the late proceedings have been led by deceitful +representations (which deceit made a part in the plan) to conceive that +this totally new model of a state, in which nothing escaped a change, +was made with a view to its internal relations only. + +In the Revolution of France, two sorts of men were principally concerned +in giving a character and determination to its pursuits: the +philosophers and the politicians. They took different ways, but they met +in the same end. + +The philosophers had one predominant object, which they pursued with a +fanatical fury,--that is, the utter extirpation of religion. To that +every question of empire was subordinate. They had rather domineer in a +parish of atheists than rule over a Christian world. Their temporal +ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytizing spirit, in which +they were not exceeded by Mahomet himself. + +They who have made but superficial studies in the natural history of the +human mind have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only +cause of enthusiastic zeal and sectarian propagation. But there is no +doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the +very same effect. The social nature of man impels him to propagate his +principles, as much as physical impulses urge him to propagate his kind. +The passions give zeal and vehemence. The understanding bestows design +and system. The whole man moves under the discipline of his opinions. +Religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm. When anything +concerning it becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be +indifferent to the mind. They who do not love religion hate it. The +rebels to God perfectly abhor the Author of their being. They hate Him +"with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and +with all their strength." He never presents Himself to their thoughts, +but to menace and alarm them. They cannot strike the sun out of heaven, +but they are able to raise a smouldering smoke that obscures him from +their own eyes. Not being able to revenge themselves on God, they have a +delight in vicariously defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in +pieces His image in man. Let no one judge of them by what he has +conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no lead. +They were then only passengers in a common vehicle. They were then +carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and, +without being aware of it, partook of its influence. In that situation, +at worst, their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. +They despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions: +they considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. But +when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation presented +themselves, and that the ambition which before had so often made them +hypocrites might rather gain than lose by a daring avowal of their +sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit, which has "evil for +its good," appeared in its full perfection. Nothing, indeed, but the +possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the +bottom is the true character of any man. Without reading the speeches of +Vergniaud, Francais of Nantes, Isnard, and some others of that sort, it +would not be easy to conceive the passion, rancor, and malice of their +tongues and hearts. They worked themselves up to a perfect frenzy +against religion and all its professors. They tore the reputation of the +clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before +they lacerated their bodies by their massacres. This fanatical atheism +left out, we omit the principal feature in the French Revolution, and a +principal consideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a +peace with it. + +The other sort of men were the politicians. To them, who had little or +not at all reflected on the subject, religion was in itself no object of +love or hatred. They disbelieved it, and that was all. Neutral with +regard to that object, they took the side which in the present state of +things might best answer their purposes. They soon found that they could +not do without the philosophers; and the philosophers soon made them +sensible that the destruction of religion was to supply them with means +of conquest, first at home, and then abroad. The philosophers were the +active internal agitators, and supplied the spirit and principles: the +second gave the practical direction. Sometimes the one predominated in +the composition, sometimes the other. The only difference between them +was in the necessity of concealing the general design for a time, and in +their dealing with foreign nations: the fanatics going straight forward +and openly, the politicians by the surer mode of zigzag. In the course +of events, this, among other causes, produced fierce and bloody +contentions between them; but at the bottom they thoroughly agreed in +all the objects of ambition and irreligion, and substantially in all the +means of promoting these ends. + +Without question, to bring about the unexampled event of the French +Revolution, the concurrence of a very great number of views and passions +was necessary. In that stupendous work, no one principle by which the +human mind may have its faculties at once invigorated and depraved was +left unemployed; but I can speak it to a certainty, and support it by +undoubted proofs, that the ruling principle of those who acted in the +Revolution _as statesmen_, had the exterior aggrandizement of France as +their ultimate end in the most minute part of the internal changes that +were made. We, who of late years have been drawn from an attention to +foreign affairs by the importance of our domestic discussions, cannot +easily form a conception of the general eagerness of the active and +energetic part of the French nation, itself the most active and +energetic of all nations, previous to its Revolution, upon that subject. +I am convinced that the foreign speculators in France, under the old +government, were twenty to one of the same description then or now in +England; and few of that description there were who did not emulously +set forward the Revolution. The whole official system, particularly in +the diplomatic part, the regulars, the irregulars, down to the clerks in +office, (a corps without all comparison more numerous than the same +amongst us,) cooeperated in it. All the intriguers in foreign politics, +all the spies, all the intelligencers, actually or late in function, all +the candidates for that sort of employment, acted solely upon that +principle. + +On that system of aggrandizement there was but one mind: but two violent +factions arose about the means. The first wished France, diverted from +the politics of the Continent, to attend solely to her marine, to feed +it by an increase of commerce, and thereby to overpower England on her +own element. They contended, that, if England were disabled, the powers +on the Continent would fall into their proper subordination; that it was +England which deranged the whole Continental system of Europe. The +others, who were by far the more numerous, though not the most outwardly +prevalent at court, considered this plan for France as contrary to her +genius, her situation, and her natural means. They agreed as to the +ultimate object, the reduction of the British power, and, if possible, +its naval power; but they considered an ascendancy on the Continent as a +necessary preliminary to that undertaking. They argued, that the +proceedings of England herself had proved the soundness of this policy: +that her greatest and ablest statesmen had not considered the support of +a Continental balance against France as a deviation from the principle +of her naval power, but as one of the most effectual modes of carrying +it into effect; that such had been her policy ever since the Revolution, +during which period the naval strength of Great Britain had gone on +increasing in the direct ratio of her interference in the politics of +the Continent. With much stronger reason ought the politics of France to +take the same direction,--as well for pursuing objects which her +situation would dictate to her, though England had no existence, as for +counteracting the politics of that nation: to France Continental +politics are primary; they looked on them only of secondary +consideration to England, and, however necessary, but as means necessary +to an end. + +What is truly astonishing, the partisans of those two opposite systems +were at once prevalent, and at once employed, and in the very same +transactions, the one ostensibly, the other secretly, during the latter +part of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. Nor was there one court in +which an ambassador resided on the part of the ministers, in which +another, as a spy on him, did not also reside on the part of the king: +they who pursued the scheme for keeping peace on the Continent, and +particularly with Austria, acting officially and publicly; the other +faction counteracting and opposing them. These private agents were +continually going from their function to the Bastile, and from the +Bastile to employment and favor again. An inextricable cabal was formed, +some of persons of Rank, others of subordinates. But by this means the +corps of politicians was augmented in number, and the whole formed a +body of active, adventuring, ambitious, discontented people, despising +the regular ministry, despising the courts at which they were employed, +despising the court which employed them. + +The unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth[35] was not the first cause of the +evil by which he suffered. He came to it, as to a sort of inheritance, +by the false politics of his immediate predecessor. This system of dark +and perplexed intrigue had come to its perfection before he came to the +throne; and even then the Revolution strongly operated in all its +causes. + +There was no point on which the discontented diplomatic politicians so +bitterly arraigned their cabinet as for the decay of French influence in +all others. From quarrelling with the court, they began to complain of +monarchy itself, as a system of government too variable for any regular +plan of national aggrandizement. They observed that in that sort of +regimen too much depended on the personal character of the prince: that +the vicissitudes produced by the succession of princes of a different +character, and even the vicissitudes produced in the same man, by the +different views and inclinations belonging to youth, manhood, and age, +disturbed and distracted the policy of a country made by Nature for +extensive empire, or, what was still more to their taste, for that sort +of general overruling influence which prepared empire or supplied the +place of it. They had continually in their hands the observations of +Machiavel on Livy. They had Montesquieu's _Grandeur et Decadence des +Romains_ as a manual; and they compared, with mortification, the +systematic proceedings of a Roman Senate with the fluctuations of a +monarchy. They observed the very small additions of territory which all +the power of Prance, actuated by all the ambition of France, had +acquired in two centuries. The Romans had frequently acquired more in a +single year. They severely and in every part of it criticized the reign +of Louis the Fourteenth, whose irregular and desultory ambition had +more provoked than endangered Europe. Indeed, they who will be at the +pains of seriously considering the history of that period will see that +those French politicians had some reason. They who will not take the +trouble of reviewing it through all its wars and all its negotiations +will consult the short, but judicious, criticism of the Marquis de +Montalembert on that subject. It may be read separately from his +ingenious system of fortification and military defence, on the practical +merit of which I am unable to form a judgment. + +The diplomatic politicians of whom I speak, and who formed by far the +majority in that class, made disadvantageous comparisons even between +their more legal and formalizing monarchy and the monarchies of other +states, as a system of power and influence. They observed that France +not only lost ground herself, but, through the languor and unsteadiness +of her pursuits, and from her aiming through commerce at naval force +which she never could attain without losing more on one side than she +could gain on the other, three great powers, each of them (as military +states) capable of balancing her, had grown up on the Continent. Russia +and Prussia had been created almost within memory; and Austria, though +not a new power, and even curtailed in territory, was, by the very +collision in which she lost that territory, greatly improved in her +military discipline and force. During the reign of Maria Theresa, the +interior economy of the country was made more to correspond with the +support of great armies than formerly it had been. As to Prussia, a +merely military power, they observed that one war had enriched her with +as considerable a conquest as France had acquired in centuries. Russia +had broken the Turkish power, by which Austria might be, as formerly she +had been, balanced in favor of France. They felt it with pain, that the +two Northern powers of Sweden and Denmark were in general under the sway +of Russia,--or that, at best, France kept up a very doubtful conflict, +with many fluctuations of fortune, and at an enormous expense, in +Sweden. In Holland the French party seemed, if not extinguished, at +least utterly obscured, and kept under by a Stadtholder, leaning for +support sometimes on Great Britain, sometimes on Prussia, sometimes on +both, never on France. Even the spreading of the Bourbon family had +become merely a family accommodation, and had little effect oh the +national politics. This alliance, they said, extinguished Spain by +destroying all its energy, without adding anything to the real power of +France in the accession of the forces of its great rival. In Italy the +same family accommodation, the same national insignificance, were +equally visible. What cure for the radical weakness of the French +monarchy, to which all the means which wit could devise, or Nature and +fortune could bestow, towards universal empire, was not of force to give +life or vigor or consistency, but in a republic? Out the word came: and +it never went back. + +Whether they reasoned right or wrong, or that there was some mixture of +right and wrong in their reasoning, I am sure that in this manner they +felt and reasoned. The different effects of a great military and +ambitious republic and of a monarchy of the same description were +constantly in their mouths. The principle was ready to operate, when +opportunities should offer, which few of them, indeed, foresaw in the +extent in which they were afterwards presented; but these opportunities, +in some degree or other, they all ardently wished for. + +When I was in Paris in 1773, the treaty of 1756 between Austria and +France was deplored as a national, calamity; because it united France in +friendship with a power at whose expense alone they could hope any +Continental aggrandizement. When the first partition of Poland was made, +in which France had no share, and which had farther aggrandized every +one of the three powers of which they were most jealous, I found them in +a perfect frenzy of rage and indignation: not that they were hurt at the +shocking and uncolored violence and injustice of that partition, but at +the debility, improvidence, and want of activity in their government, in +not preventing it as a means of aggrandizement to their rivals, or in +not contriving, by exchanges of some kind or other, to obtain their +share of advantage from that robbery. + +In that or nearly in that state of things and of opinions came the +Austrian match, which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in effect +it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This added +exceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It was for +this reason that the late glorious queen, who on all accounts was formed +to produce general love and admiration, and whose life was as mild and +beneficent as her death was beyond example great and heroic, became so +very soon and so very much the object of an implacable rancor, never to +be extinguished but in her blood. When I wrote my letter in answer to M. +de Menonville, in the beginning of January, 1791, I had good reason for +thinking that this description of revolutionists did not so early nor so +steadily point their murderous designs at the martyr king as at the +royal heroine. It was accident, and the momentary depression of that +part of the faction, that gave to the husband the happy priority in +death. + +From this their restless desire of an overruling influence, they bent a +very great part of their designs and efforts to revive the old French +party, which was a democratic party, in Holland, and to make a +revolution there. They were happy at the troubles which the singular +imprudence of Joseph the Second had stirred up in the Austrian +Netherlands. They rejoiced, when they saw him irritate his subjects, +profess philosophy, send away the Dutch garrisons, and dismantle his +fortifications. As to Holland, they never forgave either the king or the +ministry for suffering that object, which they justly looked on as +principal in their design of reducing the power of England, to escape +out of their hands. This was the true secret of the commercial treaty, +made, on their part, against all the old rules and principles of +commerce, with a view of diverting the English nation, by a pursuit of +immediate profit, from an attention to the progress of France in its +designs upon that republic. The system of the economists, which led to +the general opening of commerce, facilitated that treaty, but did not +produce it. They were in despair, when they found, that, by the vigor of +Mr. Pitt, supported in this point by Mr. Fox and the opposition, the +object to which they had sacrificed their manufactures was lost to their +ambition. + +This eager desire of raising France from the condition into which she +had fallen, as they conceived, from her monarchical imbecility, had been +the main spring of their precedent interference in that unhappy American +quarrel, the bad effects of which to this nation have not as yet fully +disclosed themselves. These sentiments had been long lurking in their +breasts, though their views were only discovered now and then in heat +and as by escapes, but on this occasion they exploded suddenly. They +were professed with ostentation, and propagated with zeal. These +sentiments were not produced, as some think, by their American alliance. +The American alliance was produced by their republican principles and +republican policy. This new relation undoubtedly did much. The +discourses and cabals that it produced, the intercourse that it +established, and, above all, the example, which made it seem practicable +to establish a republic in a great extent of country, finished the work, +and gave to that part of the revolutionary faction a degree of strength +which required other energies than the late king possessed to resist or +even to restrain. It spread everywhere; but it was nowhere more +prevalent than in the heart of the court. The palace of Versailles, by +its language, seemed a forum of democracy. To have pointed out to most +of those politicians, from their dispositions and movements, what has +since happened, the fall of their own monarchy, of their own laws, of +their own religion, would have been to furnish a motive the more for +pushing forward a system on which they considered all these things as +incumbrances. Such in truth they were. And we have seen them succeed, +not only in the destruction of their monarchy, but in all the objects +of ambition that they proposed from that destruction. + +When I contemplate the scheme on which France is formed, and when I +compare it with these systems with which it is and ever must be in +conflict, those things which seem as defects in her polity are the very +things which make me tremble. The states of the Christian world have +grown up to their present magnitude in a great length of time and by a +great variety of accidents. They have been improved to what we see them +with greater or less degrees of felicity and skill. Not one of them has +been formed upon a regular plan or with any unity of design. As their +constitutions are not systematical, they have not been directed to any +_peculiar_ end, eminently distinguished, and superseding every other. +The objects which they embrace are of the greatest possible variety, and +have become in a manner infinite. In all these old countries, the state +has been made to the people, and not the people conformed to the state. +Every state has pursued not only every sort of social advantage, but it +has cultivated the welfare of every individual. His wants, his wishes, +even his tastes, have been consulted. This comprehensive scheme +virtually produced a degree of personal liberty in forms the most +adverse to it. That liberty was found, under monarchies styled absolute, +in a degree unknown to the ancient commonwealths. From hence the powers +of all our modern states meet, in all their movements, with some +obstruction. It is therefore no wonder, that when these states are to be +considered as machines to operate for some one great end, that this +dissipated and balanced force is not easily concentred, or made to bear +with the whole force of the nation upon one point. + +The British state is, without question, that which pursues the greatest +variety of ends, and is the least disposed to sacrifice any one of them +to another or to the whole. It aims at taking in the entire circle of +human desires, and securing for them their fair enjoyment. Our +legislature has been ever closely connected, in its most efficient part, +with individual feeling and individual interest. Personal liberty, the +most lively of these feelings and the most important of these interests, +which in other European countries has rather arisen from the system of +manners and the habitudes of life than from the laws of the state, (in +which it flourished more from neglect than attention,) in England has +been a direct object of government. + +On this principle, England would be the weakest power in the whole +system. Fortunately, however, the great riches of this kingdom, arising +from a variety of causes, and the disposition of the people, which is as +great to spend as to accumulate, has easily afforded a disposable +surplus that gives a mighty momentum to the state. This difficulty, with +these advantages to overcome it, has called forth the talents of the +English financiers, who, by the surplus of industry poured out by +prodigality, have outdone everything which has been accomplished in +other nations. The present minister has outdone his predecessors, and, +as a minister of revenue, is far above my power of praise. But still +there are cases in which England feels more than several others (though +they all feel) the perplexity of an immense body of balanced advantages +and of individual demands, and of some irregularity in the whole mass. + +France differs essentially from all those governments which are formed +without system, which exist by habit, and which are confused with the +multitude and with the complexity of their pursuits. What now stands as +government in France is struck out at a heat. The design is wicked, +immoral, impious, oppressive: but it is spirited and daring; it is +systematic; it is simple in its principle; it has unity and consistency +in perfection. In that country, entirely to cut off a branch of +commerce, to extinguish a manufacture, to destroy the circulation of +money, to violate credit, to suspend the course of agriculture, even to +burn a city or to lay waste a province of their own, does not cost them +a moment's anxiety. To them the will, the wish, the want, the liberty, +the toil, the blood of individuals, is as nothing. Individuality is left +out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything +is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is +trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its +maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion +and conquest for its sole objects,--dominion over minds by proselytism, +over bodies by arms. + +Thus constituted, with an immense body of natural means, which are +lessened in their amount only to be increased in their effect, France +has, since the accomplishment of the Revolution, a complete unity in its +direction. It has destroyed every resource of the state which depends +upon opinion and the good-will of individuals. The riches of convention +disappear. The advantages of Nature in some measure remain; even these, +I admit, are astonishingly lessened; the command over what remains is +complete and absolute. We go about asking when assignats will expire, +and we laugh at the last price of them. But what signifies the fate of +those tickets of despotism? The despotism will find despotic means of +supply. They have found the short cut to the productions of Nature, +while others, in pursuit of them, are obliged to wind through the +labyrinth of a very intricate state of society. They seize upon the +fruit of the labor; they seize upon the laborer himself. Were France but +half of what it is in population, in compactness, in applicability of +its force, situated as it is, and being what it is, it would be too +strong for most of the states of Europe, constituted as they are, and +proceeding as they proceed. Would it be wise to estimate what the world +of Europe, as well as the world of Asia, had to dread from Genghiz Khan, +upon a contemplation of the resources of the cold and barren spot in the +remotest Tartary from whence first issued that scourge of the human +race? Ought we to judge from the excise and stamp duties of the rocks, +or from the paper circulation of the sands of Arabia, the power by which +Mahomet and his tribes laid hold at once on the two most powerful +empires of the world, beat one of them totally to the ground, broke to +pieces the other, and, in not much longer space of time than I have +lived, overturned governments, laws, manners, religion, and extended an +empire from the Indus to the Pyrenees? + +Material resources never have supplied, nor ever can supply, the want of +unity in design and constancy in pursuit. But unity in design and +perseverance and boldness in pursuit have never wanted resources, and +never will. We have not considered as we ought the dreadful energy of a +state in which the property has nothing to do with the government +Reflect, my dear Sir, reflect again and again, on a government in which +the property is in complete subjection, and where nothing roles but the +mind of desperate men. The condition of a commonwealth not governed by +its property was a combination of things which the learned and ingenious +speculator, Harrington, who has tossed about society into all forms, +never could imagine to be possible. We have seen it; the world has felt +it; and if the world will shut their eyes to this state of things, they +will feel it more. The rulers there have found their resources in +crimes. The discovery is dreadful, the mine exhaustless. They have +everything to gain, and they have nothing to lose. They have a boundless +inheritance in hope, and there is no medium for them betwixt the highest +elevation and death with infamy. Never can they, who, from the miserable +servitude of the desk, have been raised to empire, again submit to the +bondage of a starving bureau, or the profit of copying music, or writing +_plaidoyers_ by the sheet. It has made me often smile in bitterness, +when I have heard talk of an indemnity to such men, provided they +returned to their allegiance. + +From all this what is my inference? It is, that this new system of +robbery in France cannot be rendered safe by any art; that it _must_ be +destroyed, or that it will destroy all Europe; that to destroy that +enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to +bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that +system exerts; that war ought to be made against it in its vulnerable +parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this republic nothing +independent can coexist. The errors of Louis the Sixteenth were more +pardonable to prudence than any of those of the same kind into which the +allied courts may fall. They have the benefit of his dreadful example. + +The unhappy Louis the Sixteenth was a man of the best intentions that +probably ever reigned. He was by no means deficient in talents. He had a +most laudable desire to supply by general reading, and even by the +acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points +originally defective; but nobody told him (and it was no wonder he +should not himself divine it) that the world of which he read and the +world in which he lived were no longer the same. Desirous of doing +everything for the best, fearful of cabal, distrusting his own judgment, +he sought his ministers of all kinds upon public testimony. But as +courts are the field for caballers, the public is the theatre for +mountebanks and impostors. The cure for both those evils is in the +discernment of the prince. But an accurate and penetrating discernment +is what in a young prince could not be looked for. + +His conduct in its principle was not unwise; but, like most other of his +well-meant designs, it failed in his hands. It failed partly from mere +ill fortune, to which speculators are rarely pleased to assign that very +large share to which she is justly entitled in all human affairs. The +failure, perhaps, in part, was owing to his suffering his system to be +vitiated and disturbed by those intrigues which it is, humanly speaking, +impossible wholly to prevent in courts, or indeed under any form of +government. However, with these aberrations, he gave himself over to a +succession of the statesmen of public opinion. In other things he +thought that he might be a king on the terms of his predecessors. He was +conscious of the purity of his heart and the general good tendency of +his government. He flattered himself, as most men in his situation will, +that he might consult his ease without danger to his safety. It is not +at all wonderful that both he and his ministers, giving way abundantly +in other respects to innovation, should take up in policy with the +tradition of their monarchy. Under his ancestors, the monarchy had +subsisted, and even been strengthened, by the generation or support of +republics. First, the Swiss republics grew under the guardianship of the +French monarchy. The Dutch republics were hatched and cherished under +the same incubation. Afterwards, a republican constitution was, under +the influence of France, established in the Empire, against the +pretensions of its chief. Even whilst the monarchy of France, by a +series of wars and negotiations, and lastly by the Treaties of +Westphalia, had obtained the establishment of the Protestants in Germany +as a law of the Empire, the same monarchy under Louis the Thirteenth had +force enough to destroy the republican system of the Protestants at +home. + +Louis the Sixteenth was a diligent reader of history. But the very lamp +of prudence blinded him. The guide of human life led him astray. A +silent revolution in the moral world preceded the political, and +prepared it. It became of more importance than ever what examples were +given, and what measures wore adopted. Their causes no longer lurked in +the recesses of cabinets or in the private conspiracies of the factious. +They were no longer to be controlled by the force and influence of the +grandees, who formerly had been able to stir up troubles by their +discontents and to quiet them by their corruption. The chain of +subordination, even in cabal and sedition, was broken in its most +important links. It was no longer the great and the populace. Other +interests were formed, other dependencies, other connections, other +communications. The middle classes had swelled far beyond their former +proportion. Like whatever is the most effectively rich and great in +society, these classes became the seat of all the active politics, and +the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the energies +by which fortune is acquired; there the consequence of their success. +There were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and are +impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them. These +descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and the +influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit of ambition had +taken possession of this class as violently as ever it had done of any +other. They felt the importance of this situation. The correspondence of +the moneyed and the mercantile world, the literary intercourse of +academies, but above all, the press, of which they had in a manner +entire possession, made a kind of electric communication everywhere. The +press, in reality, has made every government, in its spirit, almost +democratic. Without the great, the first movements in this revolution +could not, perhaps, have been given. But the spirit of ambition, now for +the first time connected with the spirit of speculation, was not to be +restrained at will. There was no longer any means of arresting a +principle in its course. When Louis the Sixteenth, under the influence +of the enemies to monarchy, meant to found but one republic, he set up +two; when he meant to take away half the crown of his neighbor, he lost +the whole of his own. Louis the Sixteenth could not with impunity +countenance a new republic. Yet between his throne and that dangerous +lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, he had the whole Atlantic +for a ditch. He had for an outwork the English nation itself, friendly +to liberty, adverse to that mode of it. He was surrounded by a rampart +of monarchies, most of them allied to him, and generally under his +influence. Yet even thus secured, a republic erected under his auspices, +and dependent on his power, became fatal to his throne. The very money +which he had lent to support this republic, by a good faith which to him +operated as perfidy, was punctually paid to his enemies, and became a +resource in the hands of his assassins. + +With this example before their eyes, do any ministers in England, do any +ministers in Austria, really flatter themselves that they can erect, not +on the remote shores of the Atlantic, but in their view, in their +vicinity, in absolute contact with one of them, not a commercial, but a +martial republic,--a republic not of simple husbandmen or fishermen, but +of intriguers, and of warriors,--a republic of a character the most +restless, the most enterprising, the most impious, the most fierce and +bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the most bold and daring, +that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be conceived to exist, +without bringing on their own certain ruin? + +Such is the republic to which we are going to give a place in civilized +fellowship,--the republic which, with joint consent, we are going to +establish in the centre of Europe, in a post that overlooks and +commands every other state, and which eminently confronts and menaces +this kingdom. + +You cannot fail to observe that I speak as if the allied powers were +actually consenting, and not compelled by events, to the establishment +of this faction in France. The words have not escaped me. You will +hereafter naturally expect that I should make them good. But whether in +adopting this measure we are madly active or weakly passive or +pusillanimously panic-struck, the effects will be the same. You may call +this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy, expelled the +proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,[36]--you may +call this Prance, if you please; but of the ancient France nothing +remains but its central geography, its iron frontier, its spirit of +ambition, its audacity of enterprise, its perplexing intrigue. These, +and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle +and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of +virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No +single new corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new +institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when everything +has been chosen with care and selection to forward all those ambitious +designs and dispositions, not to control them? The whole is a body of +ways and means for the supply of dominion, without one heterogeneous +particle in it. + +Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has +occurred to me on the _genius and character_ of the French Revolution. +From having this before us, we may be better able to determine on the +first question I proposed,--that is, How far nations called foreign are +likely to be affected with the system established within that territory. +I intended to proceed next on the question of her facilities, _from the +internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for +obtaining her ends; but I ought to be aware that my notions are +controverted. I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of +what in that way has been recommended to me as the most deserving of +notice. In the examination of those pieces, I shall have occasion to +discuss some others of the topics to which I have called your attention. +You know that the letters which I now send to the press, as well as a +part of what is to follow, have been in their substance long since +written. A circumstance which your partiality alone could make of +importance to you, but which to the public is of no importance at all, +retarded their appearance. The late events which press upon us obliged +me to make some additions, but no substantial change in the matter. + +This discussion, my friend, will be long. But the matter is serious; and +if ever the fate of the world could be truly said to depend on a +particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[34] See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793. + +[35] It may be right to do justice to Louis the Sixteenth. He did what +he could to destroy the double diplomacy of France. He had all the +secret correspondence burnt, except one piece, which was called +_Conjectures raisonnees sur la Situation actuelle de la France dans le +Systeme Politique de l'Europe_: a work executed by M. Favier, under the +direction of Count Broglie. A single copy of this was said to have been +found in the cabinet of Louis the Sixteenth. It was published with some +subsequent state-papers of Vergennes, Turgot, and others, as "a new +benefit of the Revolution," and the advertisement to the publication +ends with the following words: "_Il sera facile de se convaincre_, QU'Y +COMPRIS MEME LA REVOLUTION, _en grande partie_, ON TROUVE DANS CES +_MEMOIRES_ ET CES _CONJECTURES_ LE GERME DE TOUT CE QUI ARRIVE +AUJOURD'HUI, _et qu'on ne peut, sans les avoir lus, etre bien au fait +des interets, et meme des vues actuelles des diverses puissances de +l'Europe_." The book is entitled _Politique de tous les Cabinets de +l'Europe pendant la Regnes de Louis XV. et de Louis XVI_. It is +altogether very curious, and worth reading. + +[36] See our Declaration. + + + + +LETTER III. + +ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE +RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR. + + +Dear Sir,--I thank you for the bundle of state-papers which I received +yesterday. I have travelled through the negotiation,--and a sad, +founderous road it is. There is a sort of standing jest against my +countrymen,--that one of them on his journey having found a piece of +pleasant road, he proposed to his companion to go over it again. This +proposal, with regard to the worthy traveller's final destination, was +certainly a blunder. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; +for the way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide +negotiations it is otherwise: our "paths are not paths of pleasantness, +nor our ways the ways to peace." All our mistakes, (if such they are,) +like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and +they will be full as far from bringing us to our place of rest as his +well-considered project was from forwarding him to his inn. Yet I see we +persevere. Fatigued with our former course, too listless to explore a +new one, kept in action by inertness, moving only because we have been +in motion, with a sort of plodding perseverance we resolve to measure +back again the very same joyless, hopeless, and inglorious track. +Backward and forward,--oscillation, space,--the travels of a postilion, +miles enough to circle the globe in one short stage,--we have been, and +we are yet to be, jolted and rattled over the loose, misplaced stones +and the treacherous hollows of this rough, ill-kept, broken-up, +treacherous French causeway! + +The Declaration which brings up the rear of the papers laid before +Parliament contains a review and a reasoned summary of all our attempts +and all our failures,--a concise, but correct narrative of the painful +steps taken to bring on the essay of a treaty at Paris,--a clear +exposure of all the rebuffs we received in the progress of that +experiment,--an honest confession of our departure from all the rules +and all the principles of political negotiation, and of common prudence +in the conduct of it,--and to crown the whole, a fair account of the +atrocious manner in which the Regicide enemies had broken up what had +been so inauspiciously begun and so feebly carried on, by finally, and +with all scorn, driving our suppliant ambassador out of the limits of +their usurpation. + +Even after all that I have lately seen, I was a little surprised at this +exposure. A minute display of hopes formed without foundation and of +labors pursued without fruit is a thing not very flattering to +self-estimation. But truth has its rights, and it will assert them. The +Declaration, after doing all this with a mortifying candor, concludes +the whole recapitulation with an engagement still more extraordinary +than all the unusual matter it contains. It says that "His Majesty, who +had entered into the negotiation with _good faith_, who had suffered +_no_ impediment to prevent his prosecuting it with _earnestness and +sincerity_, has now _only to lament_ its abrupt termination, and to +renew _in the face of all Europe the solemn declaration_, that, whenever +his enemies shall be _disposed_ to enter on the work of general +pacification in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing shall be +wanting on his part to contribute to the accomplishment of that great +object." + +If the disgusting detail of the accumulated insults we have received, in +what we have very properly called our "solicitation" to a gang of felons +and murderers, had been produced as a proof of the utter inefficacy of +that mode of proceeding with that description of persons, I should have +nothing at all to object to it. It might furnish matter conclusive in +argument and instructive in policy; but, with all due submission to high +authority, and with all decent deference to superior lights, it does not +seem quite clear to a discernment no better than mine that the premises +in that piece conduct irresistibly to the conclusion. A labored display +of the ill consequences which have attended an uniform course of +submission to every mode of contumelious insult, with which the +despotism of a proud, capricious, insulting, and implacable foe has +chosen to buffet our patience, does not appear to my poor thoughts to be +properly brought forth as a preliminary to justify a resolution of +persevering in the very same kind of conduct, towards the very same sort +of person, and on the very same principles. We state our experience, and +then we come to the manly resolution of acting in contradiction to it. +All that has passed at Paris, to the moment of our being shamefully +hissed off that stage, has been nothing but a more solemn representation +on the theatre of the nation of what had been before in rehearsal at +Basle. As it is not only confessed by us, but made a matter of charge on +the enemy, that he had given us no encouragement to believe there was a +change in his disposition or in his policy at any time subsequent to the +period of his rejecting our first overtures, there seems to have been no +assignable motive for sending Lord Malmesbury to Paris, except to expose +his humbled country to the worst indignities, and the first of the kind, +as the Declaration very truly observes, that have been known in the +world of negotiation. + +An honest neighbor of mine is not altogether unhappy in the application +of an old common story to a present occasion. It may be said of my +friend, what Horace says of a neighbor of his, "_Garrit aniles ex re +fabellas_." Conversing on this strange subject, he told me a current +story of a simple English country squire, who was persuaded by certain +_dilettanti_ of his acquaintance to see the world, and to become knowing +in men and manners. Among other celebrated places, it was recommended to +him to visit Constantinople. He took their advice. After various +adventures, not to our purpose to dwell upon, he happily arrived at that +famous city. As soon as he had a little reposed himself from his +fatigue, he took a walk into the streets; but he had not gone far, +before "a malignant and a turbaned Turk" had his choler roused by the +careless and assured air with which this infidel strutted about in the +metropolis of true believers. In this temper he lost no time in doing to +our traveller the honors of the place. The Turk crossed over the way, +and with perfect good-will gave him two or three lusty kicks on the seat +of honor. To resent or to return the compliment in Turkey was quite out +of the question. Our traveller, since he could not otherwise acknowledge +this kind of favor, received it with the best grace in the world: he +made one of his most ceremonious bows, and begged the kicking Mussulman +"to accept his perfect assurances of high consideration." Our countryman +was too wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger. He thought it +better, as better it was, to assuage his bruised dignity with half a +yard square of balmy diplomatic diachylon. In the disasters of their +friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they +are such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of +pleasantry. The English fellow-travellers of our sufferer, finding him a +little out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a business so +very seriously. They told him it was the custom of the country; that +every country had its customs; that the Turkish manners were a little +rough, but that in the main the Turks were a good-natured people; that +what would have been a deadly affront anywhere else was only a little +freedom there: in short, they told him to think no more of the matter, +and to try his fortune in another promenade. But the squire, though a +little clownish, had some home-bred sense. "What! have I come, at all +this expense and trouble, all the way to Constantinople only to be +kicked? Without going beyond my own stable, my groom, for half a crown, +would have kicked me to my heart's content. I don't mean to stay in +Constantinople eight-and-forty hours, nor ever to return to this rough, +good-natured people, that have their own customs." + +In my opinion the squire was in the right. He was satisfied with his +first ramble and his first injuries. But reason of state and common +sense are two things. If it were not for this difference, it might not +appear of absolute necessity, after having received a certain quantity +of buffetings by advance, that we should send a peer of the realm to the +scum of the earth to collect the debt to the last farthing, and to +receive, with infinite aggravation, the same scorns which had been paid +to our supplication through a commoner: but it was proper, I suppose, +that the whole of our country, in all its orders, should have a share of +the indignity, and, as in reason, that the higher orders should touch +the larger proportion. + +This business was not ended because our dignity was wounded, or because +our patience was worn out with contumely and scorn. We had not disgorged +one particle of the nauseous doses with which we were so liberally +crammed by the mountebanks of Paris in order to drug and diet us into +perfect tameness. No,--we waited till the morbid strength of our +_boulimia_ for their physic had exhausted the well-stored dispensary of +their empiricism. It is impossible to guess at the term to which our +forbearance would have extended. The Regicides were more fatigued with +giving blows than the callous cheek of British diplomacy was hurt in +receiving them. They had no way left for getting rid of this mendicant +perseverance, but by sending for the beadle, and forcibly driving our +embassy "of shreds and patches," with all its mumping cant, from the +inhospitable door of Cannibal Castle,-- + + "Where the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate, + Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat," + +I think we might have found, before the rude hand of insolent office was +on our shoulder, and the staff of usurped authority brandished over our +heads, that contempt of the suppliant is not the best forwarder of a +suit,--that national disgrace is not the high-road to security, much +less to power and greatness. Patience, indeed, strongly indicates the +lore of peace; but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. It is +the power of winning that palm which insures our wearing it. Virtues +have their place; and out of their place they hardly deserve the +name,--they pass into the neighboring vice. The patience of fortitude +and the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in +their principle, so in their effects. + +In truth, this Declaration, containing a narrative of the first +transaction of the kind (and I hope it will be the last) in the +intercourse of nations, as a composition, is ably drawn. It does credit +to our official style. The report of the speech of the minister in a +great assembly, which I have read, is a comment upon the Declaration. +Without inquiry how far that report is exact, (inferior I believe it may +be to what it would represent,) yet still it reads as a most eloquent +and finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the +indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide to the supplications +made to that junto in his Majesty's name has been spared. Every one of +the aggravations attendant on these acts of outrage is, with wonderful +perspicuity and order, brought forward in its place, and in the manner +most fitted to produce its effect. They are turned to every point of +view in which they can be seen to the best advantage. All the parts are +so arranged as to point out their relation, and to furnish a true idea +of the spirit of the whole transaction. + +This speech may stand for a model. Never, for the triumphal decoration +of any theatre, not for the decoration of those of Athens and Rome, or +even of this theatre of Paris, from the embroideries of Babylon or from +the loom of the Gobelins, has there been sent any historic tissue so +truly drawn, so closely and so finely wrought, or in which the forms are +brought out in the rich purple of such glowing and blushing colors. It +puts me in mind of the piece of tapestry with which Virgil proposed to +adorn the theatre he was to erect to Augustus upon the banks of the +Mincio, who now hides his head in his reeds, and leads his slow and +melancholy windings through banks wasted by the barbarians of Gaul. He +supposes that the artifice is such, that the figures of the conquered +nations in his tapestry are made to play their part, and are confounded +in the machine,-- + + utque + Purpurea intexti tollant aulaea Britanni; + +or, as Dryden translates it, somewhat paraphrastically, but not less in +the spirit of the prophet than of the poet,-- + + "Where the proud theatres disclose the scene, + Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, + And show the triumph which their shame displays." + +It is something wonderful, that the sagacity shown in the Declaration +and the speech (and, so far as it goes, greater was never shown) should +have failed to discover to the writer and to the speaker the inseparable +relation between the parties to this transaction, and that nothing can +be said to display the imperious arrogance of a base enemy which does +not describe with equal force and equal truth the contemptible figure of +an abject embassy to that imperious power. + +It is no less striking, that the same obvious reflection should not +occur to those gentlemen who conducted the opposition to government. But +their thoughts were turned another way. They seem to have been so +entirely occupied with the defence of the French Directory, so very +eager in finding recriminatory; precedents to justify every act of its +intolerable insolence, so animated in their accusations of ministry for +not having at the very outset made concessions proportioned to the +dignity of the great victorious power we had offended, that everything +concerning the sacrifice in this business of national honor, and of the +most fundamental principles in the policy of negotiation, seemed wholly +to have escaped them. To this fatal hour, the contention in Parliament +appeared in another form, and was animated by another spirit. For three +hundred years and more, we have had wars with what stood as government +in France. In all that period, the language of ministers, whether of +boast or of apology, was, that they had left nothing undone for the +assertion of the national honor,--the opposition, whether patriotically +or factiously, contending that the ministers had been oblivious of the +national glory, and had made improper sacrifices of that public interest +which they were bound not only to preserve, but by all fair methods to +augment. This total change of tone on both sides of your House forms +itself no inconsiderable revolution; and I am afraid it prognosticates +others of still greater importance. The ministers exhausted the stores +of their eloquence in demonstrating that they had quitted the safe, +beaten highway of treaty between independent powers,--that, to pacify +the enemy, they had made every sacrifice of the national dignity,--and +that they had offered to immolate at the same shrine the most valuable +of the national acquisitions. The opposition insisted that the victims +were not fat nor fair enough to be offered on the altars of blasphemed +Regicide; and it was inferred from thence, that the sacrifical +ministers, (who were a sort of intruders in the worship of the new +divinity,) in their schismatical devotion, had discovered more of +hypocrisy than zeal. They charged them with a concealed resolution to +persevere in what these gentlemen have (in perfect consistency, indeed, +with themselves, but most irreconcilably with fact and reason) called an +unjust and impolitic war. + +That day was, I fear, the fatal term of _local_ patriotism. On that day, +I fear, there was an end of that narrow scheme of relations called our +country, with all its pride, its prejudices, and its partial affections. +All the little quiet rivulets, that watered an humble, a contracted, but +not an unfruitful field, are to be lost in the waste expanse, and +boundless, barren ocean of the homicide philanthropy of France. It is no +longer an object of terror, the aggrandizement of a new power which +teaches as a professor that philanthropy in the chair, whilst it +propagates by arms and establishes by conquest the comprehensive system +of universal fraternity. In what light is all this viewed in a great +assembly? The party which takes the lead there has no longer any +apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted to the +closest and most confidential connections with the metropolis of that +fraternity. That reigning party no longer touches on its favorite +subject, the display of those horrors that must attend the existence of +a power with such dispositions and principles, seated in the heart of +Europe. It is satisfied to find some loose, ambiguous expressions in +its former declarations, which may set it free from its professions and +engagements. It always speaks of peace with the Regicides as a great and +an undoubted blessing, and such a blessing as, if obtained, promises, as +much as any human disposition of things can promise, security and +permanence. It holds out nothing at all definite towards this security. +It only seeks, by a restoration to some of their former owners of some +fragments of the general wreck of Europe, to find a plausible plea for a +present retreat from an embarrassing position. As to the future, that +party is content to leave it covered in a night of the most palpable +obscurity. It never once has entered into a particle of detail of what +our own situation, or that of other powers, must be, under the blessings +of the peace we seek. This defect, to my power, I mean to supply,--that, +if any persons should still continue to think an attempt at foresight is +any part of the duty of a statesman, I may contribute my trifle to the +materials of his speculation. + +As to the other party, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of +to-morrow, small in number, but full of talents and every species of +energy, which, upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to +France, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom, it has never +changed from the beginning. It has preserved a perennial consistency. +This would be a never failing source of true glory, if springing from +just and right; but it is truly dreadful, if it be an arm of Styx, which +springs out of the profoundest depths of a poisoned soil. The French +maxims were by these gentlemen at no time condemned. I speak of their +language in the most moderate terms. There are many who think that they +have gone much further,--that they have always magnified and extolled +the French maxims,--that; not in the least disgusted or discouraged by +the monstrous evils which have attended these maxims from the moment of +their adoption both at home and abroad, they still continue to predict +that in due time they must produce the greatest good to the poor human +race. They obstinately persist in stating those evils as matter of +accident, as things wholly collateral to the system. + +It is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great +Britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard: on the contrary, +it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in +such terms of contempt or execration as never had been heard +before,--because no such would have formerly been permitted in our +public assemblies. The moment, however, that any of those allies quitted +this obnoxious connection, the party has instantly passed an act of +indemnity and oblivion in their favor. After this, no sort of censure on +their conduct, no imputation on their character. From that moment their +pardon was sealed in a reverential and mysterious silence. With the +gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one end of Europe to +the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed to act. The whole +college of the states of Europe is no better than a gang of tyrants. +With them all our connections were broken off at once. We ought to have +cultivated France, and France alone, from the moment of her Revolution. +On that happy change, all our dread of that nation as a power was to +cease. She became in an instant dear to our affections and one with our +interests. All other nations we ought to have commanded not to trouble +her sacred throes, whilst in labor to bring into an happy birth her +abundant litter of constitutions. We ought to have acted under her +auspices, in extending her salutary influence upon every side. From that +moment England and France were become natural allies, and all the other +states natural enemies. The whole face of the world was changed. What +was it to us, if she acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands? By +her conquests she only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence, she only +extended the blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant +nations. What was it to England, if, by adding these, among the richest +and most peopled countries of the world, to her territories, she thereby +left no possible link of communication between us and any other power +with whom we could act against her? On this new system of optimism, it +is so much the better: so much the further are we removed from the +contact with infectious despotism. No longer a thought of a barrier in +the Netherlands to Holland against France. All that is obsolete policy. +It is fit that France should have both Holland and the Austrian +Netherlands too, as a barrier to her against the attacks of despotism. +She cannot multiply her securities too much; and as to our security, it +is to be found in hers. Had we cherished her from the beginning, and +felt for her when attacked, she, poor, good soul, would never have +invaded any foreign nation, never murdered her sovereign and his family, +never proscribed, never exiled, never imprisoned, never been guilty of +extra-judicial massacre or of legal murder. All would have been a golden +age, full of peace, order, and liberty,--and philosophy, raying out from +Europe, would have warmed and enlightened the universe; but, unluckily, +irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was pat into a +passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They +find all this very natural and very justifiable. They choose to forget +that other nations, struggling for freedom, have been attacked by their +neighbors, or that their neighbors have otherwise interfered in their +affairs. Often have neighbors interfered in favor of princes against +their rebellious subjects, and often in favor of subjects against their +prince. Such cases fill half the pages of history; yet never were they +used as an apology, much less as a justification, for atrocious cruelty +in princes, or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of +revolted subjects,--never as a politic cause for suffering any such +powers to aggrandize themselves without limit and without measure. A +thousand times have we seen it asserted in public prints and pamphlets, +that, if the nobility and priesthood of France had stayed at home, their +property never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of +the clergy had been robbed previous to their deportation, or that their +deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think +that the nobility and gentry, and merchants and bankers, who stayed at +home, had enjoyed their property in security and repose. The assertors +of these positions well know that the lot of thousands who remained at +home was far more terrible, that the most cruel imprisonment was only a +harbinger of a cruel and ignominious death, and that in this mother +country of freedom there were no less than _three hundred thousand_ at +one time in prison. I go no further. I instance only these +representations of the party, as staring indications of partiality to +that sect to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to +oppose but her own naked force, and consequently subjected us, on every +reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under those very +evils, in that very system, which are attributed, not to its own nature, +but to the perverseness of others. There is nothing in the world so +difficult as to put men in a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning +there must ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to +observe to what side that leaning inclines,--whether to our own +community, or to one with which it is in a state of hostility. + +Men are rarely without some sympathy in the sufferings of others; but in +the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be pitied, +but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must make a choice. Our +sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of +certain persons, and in certain descriptions: and this sympathetic +attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of mistake, our mental +affinities and elective affections. It is a much surer proof than the +strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias in +the mind. I am told that the active sympathies of this party have been +chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal +rebels who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims of the French +Revolution, and who have suffered from their apt and forward scholars +some part of the evils which they had themselves so liberally +distributed to all the other parts of the community. Some of these men, +flying from the knives which they had sharpened against their country +and its laws, rebelling against the very powers they had set over +themselves by their rebellion against their sovereign, given up by those +very armies to whose faithful attachment they trusted for their safety +and support, after they had completely debauched all military fidelity +in its source,--some of these men, I say, had fallen into the hands of +the head of that family the most illustrious person of which they had +three times cruelly imprisoned, and delivered in that state of captivity +to those hands from which they were able to relieve neither her, nor +their own nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these men, +connected with this country by no circumstance of birth,--not related to +any distinguished families here,--recommended by no service,--endeared +to this nation by no act or even expression of kindness,--comprehended +in no league or common cause,--embraced by no laws of public +hospitality,--this man was the only one to be found in Europe, in whose +favor the British nation, passing judgment without hearing on its almost +only ally, was to force (and that not by soothing interposition, but +with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and breach of the laws of +war) from prison. We were to release him from that prison out of which, +in abuse of the lenity of government amidst its rigor, and in violation +of at least an understood parole, he had attempted an escape,--an escape +excusable, if you will, but naturally productive of strict and vigilant +confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free this person was the +more extraordinary because there was full as little in him to raise +admiration, from any eminent qualities he possessed, as there was to +excite an interest, from any that were amiable. A person not only of no +real civil or literary talents, but of no specious appearance of +either,--and in his military profession not marked as a leader in any +one act of able or successful enterprise, unless his leading on (or his +following) the allied army of Amazonian and male cannibal Parisians to +Versailles, on the famous 6th of October, 1789, is to make his glory. +Any otter exploit of his, as a general, I never heard of. But the +triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total +want of particular claims in that case,--and by postponing all such +claims in a case where they really existed, where they stood embossed, +and in a manner forced themselves on the view of common, shortsighted +benevolence. Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these +gentlemen was thus on its travels, and had got as far off as Olmuetz, +they never thought of a place and a person much nearer to them, or of +moving an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favor of their own suffering +countryman, Sir Sydney Smith. + +This officer, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a +vessel from one of the enemy's harbors, was taken after an obstinate +resistance,--such as obtained him the marked respect of those who were +witnesses of his valor, and knew the circumstances in which it was +displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into +prison, where the nature of his situation will best be understood by +knowing that amongst its _mitigations_ was the permission to walk +occasionally in the court and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. +On the old system of feelings and principles, his sufferings might have +been entitled to consideration, and, even in a comparison with those of +Citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. If the +ministers had neglected to take any steps in his favor, a declaration of +the sense of the House of Commons would have stimulated them to their +duty. If they had caused a representation to be made, such a proceeding +would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, +the address of the House would have given an additional sanction to a +measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other +sanction than its own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, +the merit of Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was +of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the +authors of the motion in favor of Citizen La Fayette. In my humble +opinion, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit with the +British nation, and something of a higher claim on British humanity, +than Citizen La Fayette. Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of +his king and country,--full of spirit,--full of resources,--going out of +the beaten road, but going right, because his uncommon enterprise was +not conducted by a vulgar judgment,--in his profession Sir Sydney Smith +might be considered as a distinguished person, if any person could well +be distinguished in a service in which scarce a commander can be named +without putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity, skill, and +vigilance that has given them a fair title to contend with any men and +in any age. But I will say nothing farther of the merits of Sir Sydney +Smith: the mortal animosity of the Regicide enemy supersedes all other +panegyric. Their hatred is a judgment in his favor without appeal. At +present he is lodged in the tower of the Temple, the last prison of +Louis the Sixteenth, and the last but one of Marie Antoinette of +Austria,--the prison of Louis the Seventeenth,--the prison of Elizabeth +of Bourbon. There he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to +meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their king and +country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from intercourse, was indulging +in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further +consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation of his +guards) that there was an English ambassador at Paris; he might have had +the proud comfort of hearing that this ambassador had the honor of +passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a +Regicide pettifogger, and that in the evening he relaxed in the +amusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally +new,--an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about him not a +single face that he could formerly have known in Paris, but, in the +place of that company, one indeed more than equal to it in display of +gayety, splendor, and luxury,--a set of abandoned wretches, squandering +in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country: a subject of +profound reflection both to the prisoner and to the ambassador. + +Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this +last party be fully authenticated or not must be left to those who have +had the opportunity of a nearer view of its conduct, and who have been +more attentive in their perusal of the writings which have appeared in +its favor. But for my part, I have never heard the gross facts on which +I ground my idea of their marked partiality to the reigning tyranny in +France in any part denied. I am not surprised at all this. Opinions, as +they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the +affections; and men may become more attached to the country of their +principles than to the country of their birth. What I have stated here +is only to mark the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat +different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders, and to trace this +first pattern of a negotiation to its true source. + +Such is the present state of our public councils. Well might I be +ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with the +two most eloquent men which this country ever saw at the head of them, +if I had found that either of them could support their conduct by any +example in the history of their country. I should very much prefer their +judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an infinitely +overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom, of +ages to the abilities of any two men living.--I return to the +Declaration, with which the history of the abortion of a treaty with the +Regicides is closed. + +After such an elaborate display had been made of the injustice and +insolence of an enemy who seems to have been irritated by every one of +the means which had been commonly used with effect to soothe the rage of +intemperate power, the natural result would be, that the scabbard in +which we in vain attempted to plunge our sword should have been thrown +away with scorn. It would have been natural, that, rising in the fulness +of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, +rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have poured out +all the length of the reins upon all the wrath which they had so long +restrained. It might have been expected, that, emulous of the glory of +the youthful hero[37] in alliance with him, touched by the example of +what one man well formed and well placed may do in the most desperate +state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as +powerful and far less vulgar than that of the field, our minister would +have changed the whole line of that unprosperous prudence which hitherto +had produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his +situation full of danger, (and I do not deny that it is perilous in the +extreme,) he must feel that it is also full of glory, and that he is +placed on a stage than which no muse of fire that had ascended the +highest heaven of invention could imagine anything more awful and +august. It was hoped that in this swelling scene in which he moved, with +some of the first potentates of Europe for his fellow-actors, and with +so many of the rest for the anxious spectators of a part which, as he +plays it, determines forever their destiny and his own, like Ulysses in +the unravelling point of the epic story, he would have thrown off his +patience and his rags together, and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he +would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of an hero. On +that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars; that he +would bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel (where his +scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of +war whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that +feeds them; that he would let them loose, in famine, fever, plagues, +and death, upon a guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit, +order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. It was +expected that he would at last have thought of active and effectual war; +that he would no longer amuse the British lion in the chase of mice and +rats; that he would no longer employ the whole naval power of Great +Britain, once the terror of the world, to prey upon the miserable +remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard, and from +which none could profit. It was expected that he would have reasserted +the justice of his cause; that he would have reanimated whatever +remained to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover those whom +their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial +ardor of his citizens; that he would have held out to them the example +of their ancestry, the assertor of Europe, and the scourge of French +ambition; that he would have reminded them of a posterity, which, if +this nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and false color of a +government, should in full power be seated in the heart of Europe, must +forever be consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most +ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy a cause it was presumed +that he would (as in the beginning of the war he did) have opened all +the temples, and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication, +(better directed than to the grim Moloch of Regicide in France,) have +called upon us to raise that united cry which has: so often stormed +heaven, and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon a repentant +people. It was hoped, that, when he had invoked upon his endeavors the +favorable regard of the Protector of the human race, it would be seen +that his menaces to the enemy and his prayers to the Almighty were not +followed, but accompanied, with correspondent action. It was hoped that +his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to +sound a charge. + +Such a conclusion to such a declaration and such a speech would have +been a thing of course,--so much a thing of course, that I will be bold +to say, if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance, (supposing +that in Rome the matter of such a detail could have been furnished,) a +consul had gone through such a long train of proceedings, and that there +was a chasm in the manuscripts by which we had lost the conclusion of +the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would +agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to have managed the +supplementary business of a continuator most unskillfully, and to have +supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping +space in a manner somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I +have imagined. But too often different is rational conjecture from +melancholy fact. This exordium, as contrary to all the rules of rhetoric +as to those more essential rules of policy which our situation would +dictate, is intended as a prelude to a deadening and disheartening +proposition; as if all that a minister had to fear in a war of his own +conducting was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. +Such a tone as I guessed the minister would have taken, I am very sure, +is the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine, natural +feeling, under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a +conduct as the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect is +that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of those +genuine feelings. Never was there a jar or discord between genuine +sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did Nature say one thing +and Wisdom say another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves +turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than in her +grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal robber has yet +left him at Belvedere) is as much in Nature as any figure from the +pencil of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of Teniers. +Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds +must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion +under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which serves +only to destroy the body that entertains it. But vehement passion does +not always indicate an infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and +actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when +they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy +disorder within and to repel injury from abroad. If ever there was a +time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, and for +exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the awful hour that Providence has +now appointed to this nation. Every little measure is a great error, and +every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed +above the mark that we must aim at: everything below it is absolutely +thrown away. + +Except with the addition of the unheard-of insult offered to our +ambassador by his rude expulsion, we are never to forget that the point +on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off was exactly that +which had stifled in its cradle the negotiation we had attempted with +Barthelemy. Each of these transactions concluded with a manifesto upon +our part; but the last of our manifestoes very materially differed from +the first. The first Declaration stated, that "_nothing was left_ but to +prosecute a war _equally just and necessary_." In the second the justice +and necessity of the war is dropped: the sentence importing that nothing +was left but the prosecution of such a war disappears also. Instead of +this resolution to prosecute the war, we sink into a whining lamentation +on the abrupt termination of the treaty. We have nothing left but the +last resource of female weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting +decrepitude,--wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter a sentiment +of vigor;--"his Majesty has only to lament." A poor possession, to be +left to a great monarch! Mark the effect produced on our councils by +continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable +under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and +origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we leave every +one to abound in his own sense. In the minister's speech, glossing on +the Declaration, it is indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are +so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only make a part of our +_consolation_ in the circumstances which we so dolefully lament. We rest +our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation, and the +perfect good faith of those submissions which have been used to persuade +our Regicide enemies to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said +which might not have been full as well said, and much better too, if the +British nation had appeared in the simple character of a penitent +convinced of his errors and offences, and offering, by penances, by +pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever devised by anxious, +restless guilt, to make all the atonement in his miserable power. + +The Declaration ends, as I have before quoted it, with a solemn +voluntary pledge, the most full and the most solemn that ever was given, +of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the very +same course. It requires nothing more of the Regicides than to famish +some sort of excuse, some sort of colorable pretest, for our renewing +the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves the +moment of negotiation, a most important moment, to the choice of the +enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his affairs. +He is to bring it forward at that time when it may best serve to +establish his authority at home and to extend his power abroad, A +dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or +whether it is kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in the +manner we have seen, the field of future conduct ought to be reserved +free and unincumbered to our future discretion. As to the sort of +condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, "that the enemy should be +disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with the spirit +of reconciliation and equity," this phraseology cannot possibly be +considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to fill the +sentence and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same plausible +conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our manifesto on the +rejection of our proposals at Basle. We did not consider those +conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious negotiation +without any sort of regard to them; and there is no new negotiation +which we can possibly open upon fewer indications of conciliation and +equity than were to be discovered when we entered into our last at +Paris. Any of the slightest pretences, any of the most loose, formal, +equivocating expressions, would justify us, under the peroration of this +piece, in again sending the last or some other Lord Malmesbury to Paris. + +I hope I misunderstand this pledge,--or that we shall show no more +regard to it than we have done to all the faith that we have plighted to +vigor and resolution in our former Declaration. If I am to understand +the conclusion of the Declaration to be what unfortunately it seems to +me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without any correspondent +engagement on his side. We seem to have cut ourselves off from any +benefit which an intermediate state of things might furnish to enable us +totally to overturn that power, so little connected with moderation and +justice. By holding out no hope, either to the justly discontented in +France, or to any foreign power, and leaving the recommencement of all +treaty to this identical junto of assassins, we do in effect assure and +guaranty to them the full possession of the rich fruits of their +confiscations, of their murders of men, women, and children, and of all +the multiplied, endless, nameless iniquities by which they have obtained +their power. We guaranty to them the possession of a country, such and +so situated as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented. + +"Well," some will say, "in this case we have only submitted to the +nature of things." The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy +adversary. This might be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty. +But what plea of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty was dead and +gone, in favor of this posthumous Declaration? No necessity has driven +us to _that_ pledge. It is without a counterpart even in expectation. +And what can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary +engagement must produce on the understandings or the fears of men? I +ask, what have the Regicides promised you in return, in case _you_ +should show what _they_ would call dispositions to conciliation and +equity, whilst you are giving that pledge from the throne, and engaging +Parliament to counter-secure it? It is an awful consideration. It was on +the very day of the date of this wonderful pledge,[38] in which we +assumed the Directorial government as lawful, and in which we engaged +ourselves to treat with them whenever they pleased,--it was on that very +day the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbors, +where it had remained four days in perfect quiet. These harbors of the +British dominions are the ports of France. They are of no use but to +protect an enemy from your best allies, the storms of heaven and his own +rashness. Had the West of Ireland been an unportuous coast, the French +naval power would have been undone. The enemy uses the moment for +hostility, without the least regard to your future dispositions of +equity and conciliation. They go out of what were once your harbors, and +they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days they had the full use +of Bantry Bay, and at length their fleet returns from their harbor of +Bantry to their harbor of Brest. Whilst you are invoking the propitious +spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation, they answer you with an +attack. They turn out the pacific bearer of your "how do you dos," Lord +Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and their "thanks for your +obliging inquiries," by their old practised assassin, Hoche. They come +to attack--what? A town, a fort, a naval station? They come to attack +your king, your Constitution, and the very being of that Parliament +which was holding out to them these pledges, together with the +entireness of the empire, the laws, liberties, and properties of all the +people. We know that they meditated the very same invasion, and for the +very same purposes, upon this kingdom, and, had the coast been as +opportune, would have effected it. + +Whilst _you_ are in vain torturing your invention to assure them of +_your_ sincerity and good faith, they have left no doubt concerning +_their_ good faith and _their_ sincerity towards those to whom they have +engaged their honor. To their power they have been true to the only +pledge they have ever yet given to you, or to any of yours: I mean the +solemn engagement which they entered into with the deputation of +traitors who appeared at their bar, from England and from Ireland, in +1792. They have been true and faithful to the engagement which they had +made more largely,--that is, their engagement to give effectual aid to +insurrection and treason, wherever they might appear in the world. We +have seen the British Declaration. This is the counter Declaration of +the Directory. This is the reciprocal pledge which Regicide amity gives +to the conciliatory pledges of kings. But, thank God, such pledges +cannot exist single. They have no counterpart; and if they had, the +enemy's conduct cancels such declarations,--and, I trust, along with +them, cancels everything of mischief and dishonor that they contain. + +There is one thing in this business which appears to be wholly +unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain for +a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains to clear the British +nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate thirst of war? At what +period of time was it that our country has deserved that load of infamy +of which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct +can serve to clear us? If we have deserved this kind of evil fame from +anything we have done in a state of prosperity, I am sure that it is not +an abject conduct in adversity that can clear our reputation. Well is it +known that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in +a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him +who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune. But +it seems it was thought necessary to give some out-of-the-way proofs of +our sincerity, as well as of our freedom from ambition. Is, then, fraud +and falsehood become the distinctive character of Englishmen? Whenever +your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill faith, will you put +it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? +Is his charge equal to the finding of the grand jury of Europe, and +sufficient to put you upon your trial? But on that trial I will defend +the English ministry. I am sorry that on some points I have, on the +principles I have always opposed, so good a defence to make. They were +not the first to begin the war. They did not excite the general +confederacy in Europe, which was so properly formed on the alarm given +by the Jacobinism of France. They did not begin with an hostile +aggression on the Regicides, or any of their allies. These parricides of +their own country, disciplining themselves for foreign by domestic +violence, were the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature, +by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied treaties. Is it not true +that they were the first to declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word +in the declaration from Downing Street concerning their conduct, and +concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false that it is +necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to +expunge the memory of all this perfidy? + +We know that over-laboring a point of this kind has the direct contrary +effect from what we wish. We know that there is a legal presumption +against men, _quando se nimis purgitant_; and if a charge of ambition is +not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud +and perfidy is still less to be washed away by indications of meanness. +Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of +the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate +spirits; and on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the mask +of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain credit for manly +simplicity and a liberal openness of proceeding. It is an erect +countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of +resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and +honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind. Therefore all these +negotiations, and all the declarations with which they were preceded and +followed, can only serve to raise presumptions against that good faith +and public integrity the fame of which to preserve inviolate is so much +the interest and duty of every nation. + +The pledge is an engagement "to all Europe." This is the more +extraordinary, because it is a pledge which no power in Europe, whom I +have yet heard of, has thought proper to require at our hands. I am not +in the secrets of office, and therefore I may be excused for proceeding +upon probabilities and exterior indications. I have surveyed all Europe +from the east to the west, from the north to the south, in search of +this call upon us to purge ourselves of "subtle _duplicity_ and a +_Punic_ style" in our proceedings. I have not heard that his Excellency +the Ottoman ambassador has expressed his doubts of the British sincerity +in our negotiation with the most unchristian republic lately set up at +our door. What sympathy in that quarter may have introduced a +remonstrance upon the want of faith in this nation I cannot positively +say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabic, and possibly is not yet +translated. But none of the nations which compose the old Christian +world have I yet heard as calling upon us for those judicial purgations +and ordeals, by fire and water, which we have chosen to go through;--for +the other great proof, by battle, we seem to decline. + +For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are all those overstrained +and overlabored proceedings in council, in negotiation, and in speeches +in Parliament intended? What royal cabinet is to be enriched with these +high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the sworn enemies of kings +and the meek patience of a British administration? In what heart is it +intended to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications and +disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What nation is unacquainted with +the haughty disposition of the common enemy of all nations? It has been +more than seen, it has been felt,--not only by those who have been the +victims of their imperious rapacity, but, in a degree, by those very +powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be +able to copy it, and with impunity to make new usurpations of their own. + +The King of Prussia has hypothecated in trust to the Regicides his rich +and fertile territories on the Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and +affection to the cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them robbed +with unbounded liberty and with the most levelling equality. The woods +are wasted, the country is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the +people are put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical +government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to +satisfy the Court of Berlin that the Court of London is to give the same +sort of pledge of its sincerity and good faith to the French Directory? +It is not that heart full of sensibility, it is not Lucchesini, the +minister of his Prussian Majesty, the late ally of England, and the +present ally of its enemy, who has demanded this pledge of our +sincerity, as the price of the renewal of the long lease of his sincere +friendship to this kingdom. + +It is not to our enemy, the now faithful ally of Regicide, late the +faithful ally of Great Britain, the Catholic king, that we address our +doleful lamentation: it is not to the _Prince of Peace_, whose +declaration of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general +tranquillity, which our dove-like ambassador, with the olive-branch in +his beak, was saluted with at his entrance into the ark of clean birds +at Paris. + +Surely it is not to the Tetrarch of Sardinia, now the faithful ally of a +power who has seized upon all his fortresses and confiscated the oldest +dominions of his house,--it is not to this once powerful, once +respected, and once cherished ally of Great Britain, that we mean to +prove the sincerity of the peace which we offered to make at his +expense. Or is it to him we are to prove the arrogance of the power who, +under the name of friend, oppresses him, and the poor remains of his +subjects, with all the ferocity of the most cruel enemy? + +It is not to Holland, under the name of an ally, laid under a permanent +military contribution, filled with their double garrison of barbarous +Jacobin troops and ten times more barbarous Jacobin clubs and +assemblies, that we find ourselves obliged to give this pledge. + +Is it to Genoa that we make this kind promise,--a state which the +Regicides were to defend in a favorable neutrality, but whose neutrality +has been, by the gentle influence of Jacobin authority, forced into the +trammels of an alliance,--whose alliance has been secured by the +admission of French garrisons,--and whose peace has been forever +ratified by a forced declaration of war against ourselves? + +It is not the Grand Duke of Tuscany who claims this declaration,--not +the Grand Duke, who for his early sincerity, for his love of peace, and +for his entire confidence in the amity of the assassins of his house, +has been complimented in the British Parliament with the name of "_the +wisest sovereign in Europe_": it is not this pacific Solomon, or his +philosophic, cudgelled ministry, cudgelled by English and by French, +whose wisdom and philosophy between them have placed Leghorn in the +hands of the enemy of the Austrian family, and driven the only +profitable commerce of Tuscany from its only port: it is not this +sovereign, a far more able statesman than any of the Medici in whose +chair he sits, it is not the philosopher Carletti, more ably speculative +than Galileo, more profoundly politic than Machiavel, that call upon us +so loudly to give the same happy proofs of the same good faith to the +republic always the same, always one and indivisible. + +It is not Venice, whose principal cities the enemy has appropriated to +himself, and scornfully desired the state to indemnify itself from the +Emperor, that we wish to convince of the pride and the despotism of an +enemy who loads us with his scoffs and buffets. + +It is not for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our +own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That +prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The +artists of the French Revolution had given their very first essays and +sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far +more cruel "murdering piece" than had over entered into the imagination +of painter or poet. Without ceremony they tore from his cherishing arms +the possessions which he held for five hundred years, undisturbed by all +the ambition of all the ambitious monarchs who during that period have +reigned in France. Is it to him, in whose wrong we have in our late +negotiation ceded his now unhappy countries near the Rhone, lately +amongst the most flourishing (perhaps the most flourishing for their +extent) of all the countries upon earth, that we are to prove the +sincerity of our resolution to make peace with the Republic of +Barbarism? That venerable potentate and pontiff is sunk deep into the +vale of years; he is half disarmed by his peaceful character; his +dominions are more than half disarmed by a peace of two hundred years, +defended as they were, not by force, but by reverence: yet, in all these +straits, we see him display, amidst the recent ruins and the new +defacements of his plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated +piety of the modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient Rome. +Does he, who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to +receive pecuniary compensations for the protection he owed to his people +of Avignon, Carpentras, and the Venaissin,--does he want proofs of our +good disposition to deliver over that people, without any security for +them, or any compensation to their sovereign, to this cruel enemy? Does +he want to be satisfied of the sincerity of our humiliation to France, +who has seen his free, fertile, and happy city and state of Bologna, the +cradle of regenerated law, the seat of sciences and of arts, so +hideously metamorphosed, whilst he was crying to Great Britain for aid, +and offering to purchase that aid at any price? Is it him, who sees that +chosen spot of plenty and delight converted into a Jacobin ferocious +republic, dependent on the homicides of France,--is it him, who, from +the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done a work which defied +the power of the Roman emperors, though with an enthralled world to +labor for them,--is it him, who has drained and cultivated the Pontine +Marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial spirit of conciliation +with those who, in their equity, are restoring Holland again to the +seas, whose maxims poison more than the exhalations of the most deadly +fens, and who turn all the fertilities of Nature and of Art into an +howling desert? Is it to him that we are to demonstrate the good faith +of our submissions to the Cannibal Republic,--to him, who is commanded +to deliver up into their hands Ancona and Civita Vecchia, seats of +commerce raised by the wise and liberal labors and expenses of the +present and late pontiffs, ports not more belonging to the +Ecclesiastical State than to the commerce of Great Britain, thus +wresting from his hands the power of the keys of the centre of Italy, as +before they had taken possession of the keys of the northern part from +the hands of the unhappy King of Sardinia, the natural ally of England? +Is it to him we are to prove our good faith in the peace which we are +soliciting to receive from the hands of his and our robbers, the enemies +of all arts, all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce? + +Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane republics, which have been +forced to bow under the galling yoke of French liberty, that we address +all these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with their +unnatural parents? + +Are we by this Declaration to satisfy the King of Naples, whom we have +left to struggle as he can, after our abdication of Corsica, and the +flight of the whole naval force of England out of the whole circuit of +the Mediterranean, abandoning our allies, our commerce, and the honor of +a nation once the protectress of all other nations, because strengthened +by the independence and enriched by the commerce of them all? By the +express provisions of a recent treaty, we had engaged with the King of +Naples to keep a naval force in the Mediterranean. But, good God! was a +treaty at all necessary for this? The uniform policy of this kingdom as +a state, and eminently so as a commercial state, has at all times led us +to keep a powerful squadron and a commodious naval station in that +central sea, which borders upon and which connects a far greater number +and variety of states, European, Asiatic, and African, than any other. +Without such a naval force, France must become despotic mistress of that +sea, and of all the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must +become vassal to her and dependent on her will. Since we are come no +longer to trust to our force in arms, but to our dexterity in +negotiation, and begin to pay a desperate court to a proud and coy +usurpation, and have finally sent an ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides +at Paris, the King of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed +on our engagements, or on any pledge of our adherence to our nearest and +dearest interests, has been obliged to send his ambassador also to join +the rest of the squalid tribe of the representatives of degraded kings. +This monarch, surely, does not want any proof of the sincerity of our +amicable dispositions to that amicable republic, into whose arms he has +been given by our desertion of him. + +To look to the powers of the North.--It is not to the Danish ambassador, +insolently treated in his own character and in ours, that we are to give +proofs of the Regicide arrogance, and of our disposition to submit to +it. + +With regard to Sweden I cannot say much. The French influence is +struggling with her independence; and they who consider the manner in +which the ambassador of that power was treated not long since at Paris, +and the manner in which the father of the present King of Sweden +(himself the victim of regicide principles and passions) would have +looked on the present assassins of France, will not be very prompt to +believe that the young King of Sweden has made this kind of requisition +to the King of Great Britain, and has given this kind of auspice of his +new government. + +I speak last of the most important of all. It certainly was not the late +Empress of Russia at whose instance we have given this pledge. It is not +the new Emperor, the inheritor of so much glory, and placed in a +situation of so much delicacy and difficulty for the preservation of +that inheritance, who calls on England, the natural ally of his +dominions, to deprive herself of her power of action, and to bind +herself to France. France at no time, and in none of its fashions, least +of all in its last, has been ever looked upon as the friend either of +Russia or of Great Britain. Everything good, I trust, is to be expected +from this prince,--whatever may be without authority given out of an +influence over his mind possessed by that only potentate from whom he +has anything to apprehend or with whom he has much even to discuss. + +This sovereign knows, I have no doubt, and feels, on what sort of bottom +is to be laid the foundation of a Russian throne. He knows what a rock +of native granite is to form the pedestal of his statue who is to +emulate Peter the Great. His renown will be in continuing with ease and +safety what his predecessor was obliged to achieve through mighty +struggles. He is sensible that his business is not to innovate, out to +secure and to establish,--that reformations at this day are attempts at +best of ambiguous utility. He will revere his father with the piety of +a son, but in his government he will imitate the policy of his mother. +His father, with many excellent qualities, had a short reign,--because, +being a native Russian, he was unfortunately advised to act in the +spirit of a foreigner. His mother reigned over Russia three-and-thirty +years with the greatest glory,--because, with the disadvantage of being +a foreigner born, she made herself a Russian. A wise prince like the +present will improve his country; but it will be cautiously and +progressively, upon its own native groundwork of religion, manners, +habitudes, and alliances. If I prognosticate right, it is not the +Emperor of Russia that ever will call for extravagant proofs of our +desire to reconcile ourselves to the irreconcilable enemy of all +thrones. + +I do not know why I should not include America among the European +powers,--because she is of European origin, and has not yet, like +France, destroyed all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages +which she drew from Europe. As long as that Europe shall have any +possessions either in the southern or the northern parts of that +America, even separated as it is by the ocean, it must be considered as +a part of the European system. It is not America, menaced with internal +ruin from the attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of liberty in that +country,--it is not America, whose independence is directly attacked by +the French, the enemies of the independence of all nations, that calls +upon us to give security by disarming ourselves in a treacherous peace. +By such a peace, we shall deliver the Americans, their liberty, and +their order, without resource, to the mercy of their imperious allies, +who will have peace or neutrality with no state which is not ready to +join her in war against England. + +Having run round the whole circle of the European system, wherever it +acts, I must affirm that all the foreign powers who are not leagued with +France for the utter destruction of all balance through Europe and +throughout the world demand other assurances from this kingdom than are +given in that Declaration. They require assurances, not of the sincerity +of our good dispositions towards the usurpation in France, but of our +affection towards the college of the ancient states of Europe, and +pledges of our constancy, our fidelity, and of our fortitude in +resisting to the last the power that menaces them all. The apprehension +from which they wish to be delivered cannot be from anything they dread +in the ambition of England. Our power must be their strength. They hope +more from us than they fear. I am sure the only ground of their hope, +and of our hope, is in the greatness of mind hitherto shown by the +people of this nation, and its adherence to the unalterable principles +of its ancient policy, whatever government may finally prevail in +France. I have entered into this detail of the wishes and expectations +of the European powers, in order to point out more clearly not so much +what their disposition as (a consideration of far greater importance) +what their situation demands, according as that situation is related to +the Regicide Republic and to this kingdom. + +Then, if it is not to satisfy the foreign powers we make this assurance, +to what power at home is it that we pay all this humiliating court? Not +to the old Whigs or to the ancient Tories of this kingdom,--if any +memory of such ancient divisions still exists amongst us. To which of +the principles of these parties is this assurance agreeable? Is it to +the Whigs we are to recommend the aggrandizement of France, and the +subversion of the balance of power? Is it to the Tories we are to +recommend our eagerness to cement ourselves with the enemies of royalty +and religion? But if these parties, which by their dissensions have so +often distracted the kingdom, which by their union have once saved it, +and which by their collision and mutual resistance have preserved the +variety of this Constitution in its unity, be (as I believe they are) +nearly extinct by the growth of new ones, which have their roots in the +present circumstances of the times, I wish to know to which of these new +descriptions this Declaration is addressed. It can hardly be to those +persons who, in the new distribution of parties, consider the +conservation in England of the ancient order of things as necessary to +preserve order everywhere else, and who regard the general conservation +of order in other countries as reciprocally necessary to preserve the +same state of things in these islands. That party never can wish to see +Great Britain pledge herself to give the lead and the ground of +advantage and superiority to the France of to-day, in any treaty which +is to settle Europe. I insist upon it, that, so far from expecting such +an engagement, they are generally stupefied and confounded with it. That +the other party, which demands great changes here, and is so pleased to +see them everywhere else, which party I call Jacobin, that this faction +does, from the bottom of its heart, approve the Declaration, and does +erect its crest upon the engagement, there can be little doubt. To them +it may be addressed with propriety, for it answers their purposes in +every point. + +The party in opposition within the House of Lords and Commons it is +irreverent, and half a breach of privilege, (far from my thoughts,) to +consider as Jacobin. This party has always denied the existence of such +a faction, and has treated the machinations of those whom you and I call +Jacobins as so many forgeries and fictions of the minister and his +adherents, to find a pretext for destroying freedom and setting up an +arbitrary power in this kingdom. However, whether this minority has a +leaning towards the French system or only a charitable toleration of +those who lean that way, it is certain that they have always attacked +the sincerity of the minister in the same modes, and on the very same +grounds, and nearly in the same terms, with the Directory. It must +therefore be at the tribunal of the minority (from the whole tenor of +the speech) that the minister appeared to consider himself obliged to +purge himself of duplicity. It was at their bar that he held up his +hand; it was on their _sellette_ that he seemed to answer +interrogatories; it was on their principles that he defended his whole +conduct. They certainly take what the French call the _haut du pave_. +They have loudly called for the negotiation. It was accorded to them. +They engaged their support of the war with vigor, in case peace was not +granted on honorable terms. Peace was not granted on any terms, +honorable or shameful. Whether these judges, few in number, but powerful +in jurisdiction, are satisfied,--whether they to whom this new pledge is +hypothecated have redeemed their own,--whether they have given one +particle more of their support to ministry, or even, favored them with +their good opinion or their candid construction, I leave it to those who +recollect that memorable debate to determine. + +The fact is, that neither this Declaration, nor the negotiation which is +its subject, could serve any one good purpose, foreign or domestic; it +could conduce to no end, either with regard to allies or neutrals. It +tends neither to bring back the misled, nor to give courage to the +fearful, nor to animate and confirm those who are hearty and zealous in +the cause. + +I hear it has been said (though I can scarcely believe it) by a +distinguished person, in an assembly where, if there be less of the +torrent and tempest of eloquence, more guarded expression is to be +expected, that, indeed, there was no just ground of hope in this +business from the beginning. + +It is plain that this noble person, however conversant in negotiation, +having been employed in no less than four embassies, and in two +hemispheres, and in one of those negotiations having fully experienced +what it was to proceed to treaty without previous encouragement, was not +at all consulted in this experiment. For his Majesty's principal +minister declared, on the very same day, in another House, "his +Majesty's deep and sincere regret at its unfortunate and abrupt +termination, so different from the wishes and _hopes_ that were +entertained,"--and in other parts of the speech speaks of this abrupt +termination as a great disappointment, and as a fall from sincere +endeavors and sanguine expectation. Here are, indeed, sentiments +diametrically opposite, as to the hopes with which the negotiation was +commenced and carried on; and what is curious is, the grounds of the +hopes on the one side and the despair on the other are exactly the same. +The logical conclusion from the common premises is, indeed, in favor of +the noble lord; for they are agreed that the enemy was far from giving +the least degree of countenance to any such hopes, and that they +proceeded in spite of every discouragement which the enemy had thrown in +their way. But there is another material point in which they do not seem +to differ: that is to say, the result of the desperate experiment of the +noble lord, and of the promising attempt of the great minister, in +satisfying the people of England, and in causing discontent to the +people of France,--or, as the minister expresses it, "in uniting England +and in dividing France." + +For my own part, though I perfectly agreed with the noble lord that the +attempt was desperate, so desperate, indeed, as to deserve _his_ name of +an experiment, yet no fair man can possibly doubt that the minister was +perfectly sincere in his proceeding, and that, from his ardent wishes +for peace with the Regicides, he was led to conceive hopes which were +founded rather in his vehement desires than in any rational ground of +political speculation. Convinced as I am of this, it had been better, in +my humble opinion, that persons of great name and authority had +abstained from those topics which had been used to call the minister's +sincerity into doubt, and had not adopted the sentiments of the +Directory upon the subject of all our negotiations: for the noble lord +expressly says that the experiment was made for the satisfaction of the +country. The Directory says exactly the same thing. Upon granting, in +consequence of our supplications, the passport to Lord Malmesbury, in +order to remove all sort of hope from its success, they charged all our +previous steps, even to that moment of submissive demand to be admitted +to their presence, on duplicity and perfidy, and assumed that the object +of all the steps we had taken was that "of justifying the continuance of +the war in the eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium +of it upon the French." "The English nation" (said they) "supports +impatiently the continuance of the war, and _a reply must be made to its +complaints and its reproaches_; the Parliament is about to be opened, +_and the mouths of the orators who will declaim against the war must be +shut; the demands for new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these +results, it is necessary to be able to advance that the French +government refuses every reasonable proposition for peace_." I am sorry +that the language of the friends to ministry and the enemies to mankind +should be so much in unison. + +As to the fact in which these parties are so well agreed, that the +experiment ought to have been made for the satisfaction of this country, +(meaning the country of England,) it were well to be wished that persons +of eminence would cease to make themselves representatives of the people +of England, without a letter of attorney, or any other act of +procuration. In legal construction, the sense of the people of England +is to be collected from the House of Commons; and though I do not deny +the possibility of an abuse of this trust as well as any other, yet I +think, without the most weighty reasons and in the most urgent +exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the House speaks +anything contrary to the sense of the people, or that the representative +is silent, when the sense of the constituent, strongly, decidedly, and +upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic of moment. If +there is a doubt whether the House of Commons represents perfectly the +whole commons of Great Britain, (I think there is none,) there can be no +question but that the Lords and the Commons together represent the sense +of the whole people to the crown and to the world. Thus it is, when we +speak legally and constitutionally. In a great measure it is equally +true, when we speak prudentially. But I do not pretend to assert that +there are no other principles to guide discretion than those which are +or can be fixed by some law or some constitution: yet before the legally +presumed sense of the people should be superseded by a supposition of +one more real, (as in all cases where a legal presumption is to be +ascertained,) some strong proofs ought to exist of a contrary +disposition in the people at large, and some decisive indications of +their desire upon this subject. There can be no question, that, +previously to a direct message from the crown, neither House of +Parliament did indicate anything like a wish for such advances as we +have made or such negotiations as we have carried on. The Parliament has +assented to ministry; it is not ministry that has obeyed the impulse of +Parliament. The people at large have their organs through which they can +speak to Parliament and to the crown by a respectful petition, and +though not with absolute authority, yet with weight, they can instruct +their representatives. The freeholders and other electors in this +kingdom have another and a surer mode of expressing their sentiments +concerning the conduct which is held by members of Parliament. In the +middle of these transactions this last opportunity has been held out to +them. In all these points of view I positively assert that the people +have nowhere and in no way expressed their wish of throwing themselves +and their sovereign at the feet of a wicked and rancorous foe, to +supplicate mercy, which, from the nature of that foe, and from the +circumstances of affairs, we had no sort of ground to expect. It is +undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the +inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they +do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to +approach them. The petty interests of such gentlemen, their low +conceptions of things, their fears arising from the danger to which the +very arduous and critical situation of public affairs may expose their +places, their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of +a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in +Parliament,--all these causes trouble and confuse the representations +which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. If +ministers, instead of following the great indications of the +Constitution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a +cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels of imprudent +timidity for the wisdom of a nation. + +I well remember, that, when the fortune of the war began (and it began +pretty early) to turn, as it is common and natural, we were dejected by +the losses that had been sustained, and with the doubtful issue of the +contests that were foreseen. But not a word was uttered that supposed +peace upon any proper terms was in our power, or therefore that it +should be in our desire. As usual, with or without reason, we +criticized the conduct of the war, and compared our fortunes with our +measures. The mass of the nation went no further. For I suppose that you +always understood me as speaking of that very preponderating part of the +nation which had always been equally adverse to the French principles +and to the general progress of their Revolution throughout +Europe,--considering the final success of their arms and the triumph of +their principles as one and the same thing. + +The first means that were used, by any one professing our principles, to +change the minds of this party upon that subject, appeared in a small +pamphlet circulated with considerable industry. It was commonly given to +the noble person himself who has passed judgment upon all hopes from +negotiation, and justified our late abortive attempt only as an +experiment made to satisfy the country; and yet that pamphlet led the +way in endeavoring to dissatisfy that very country with the continuance +of the war, and to raise in the people the most sanguine expectations +from some such course of negotiation as has been fatally pursued. This +leads me to suppose (and I am glad to have reason for supposing) that +there was no foundation for attributing the performance in question to +that author; but without mentioning his name in the title-page, it +passed for his, and does still pass uncontradicted. It was entitled, +"Some Remarks on the Apparent Circumstances of the War in the Fourth +Week of October, 1795." + +This sanguine little king's-fisher, (not prescient of the storm, as by +his instinct he ought to be,) appearing at that uncertain season before +the rigs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the +inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over the +seas, and was busy in building its halcyon nest, as if the angry ocean +had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very unfortunately, this +auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the throne in the very +spirit and principles of that pamphlet. + +I say nothing of the newspapers, which are undoubtedly in the interest, +and which are supposed by some to be directly or indirectly under the +influence of ministers, and which, with less authority than the pamphlet +I speak of, had indeed for some time before held a similar language, in +direct contradiction to their more early tone: insomuch that I can speak +it with a certain assurance, that very many, who wished to +administration as well as you and I do, thought, that, in giving their +opinion in favor of this peace, they followed the opinion of +ministry;--they were conscious that they did not lead it. My inference, +therefore, is this: that the negotiation, whatever its merits may be, in +the general principle and policy of undertaking it, is, what every +political measure in general ought to be, the sole work of +administration; and that, if it was an experiment to satisfy anybody, it +was to satisfy those whom the ministers were in the daily habit of +condemning, and by whom they were daily condemned,--I mean the _leaders_ +of the _opposition_ in _Parliament_. I am certain that the ministers +were then, and are now, invested with the fullest confidence of the +major part of the nation, to pursue such measures of peace or war as the +nature of things shall suggest as most adapted to the public safety. It +is in this light, therefore, as a measure which ought to have been +avoided and ought not to be repeated, that I take the liberty of +discussing the merits of this system of Regicide negotiations. It is not +a matter of light experiment, that leaves us where it found us. Peace or +war are the great hinges upon which the very being of nations turns. +Negotiations are the means of making peace or preventing war, and are +therefore of more serious importance than almost any single event of war +can possibly be. + +At the very outset, I do not hesitate to affirm, that this country in +particular, and the public law in general, have suffered more by this +negotiation of experiment than by all the battles together that we have +lost from the commencement of this century to this time, when it touches +so nearly to its close. I therefore have the misfortune not to coincide +in opinion with the great statesman who set on foot a negotiation, as he +said, "in spite of the constant opposition he had met with from Prance." +He admits, "that the difficulty in this negotiation became most +seriously increased, indeed, by the situation in which we were placed, +and the manner in which alone the enemy would _admit_ of a negotiation." +This situation so described, and so truly described, rendered our +solicitation not only degrading, but from the very outset evidently +hopeless. + +I find it asserted, and even a merit taken for it, "that this country +surmounted every difficulty of form and etiquette which the enemy had +thrown in our way." An odd way of surmounting a difficulty, by cowering +under it! I find it asserted that an heroic resolution had been taken, +and avowed in Parliament, previous to this negotiation, "that no +consideration of etiquette should stand in the way of it." + +Etiquette, if I understand rightly the term, which in any extent is of +modern usage, had its original application to those ceremonial and +formal observances practised at courts, which had been established by +long usage, in order to preserve the sovereign power from the rude +intrusion of licentious familiarity, as well as to preserve majesty +itself from a disposition to consult its ease at the expense of its +dignity. The term came afterwards to have a greater latitude, and to be +employed to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions +between sovereign states. + +In the more limited, as well as in the larger sense of the term, without +knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it +is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve +decorum in character and order in business. I readily admit that nothing +tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more than a +mutual disposition in the parties treating to waive all ceremony. But +the use of this temporary suspension of the recognized modes of respect +consists in its being mutual, and in the spirit of conciliation in which +all ceremony is laid aside. On the contrary, when one of the parties to +a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in these ceremonies, and will +not on his side abate a single punctilio, and that all the concessions +are upon one side only, the party so conceding does by this act place +himself in a relation of inferiority, and thereby fundamentally subverts +that equality which is of the very essence of all treaty. + +After this formal act of degradation, it was but a matter of course that +gross insult should be offered to our ambassador, and that he should +tamely submit to it. He found himself provoked to complain of the +atrocious libels against his public character and his person which +appeared in a paper under the avowed patronage of that government. The +Regicide Directory, on this complaint, did not recognize the paper: and +that was all. They did not punish, they did not dismiss, they did not +even reprimand the writer. As to our ambassador, this total want of +reparation for the injury was passed by under the pretence of despising +it. + +In this but too serious business, it is not possible here to avoid a +smile. Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a +calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend +that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him from +above. All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these deliberate +submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the situation in +which we had placed ourselves: a situation wherein the insults were such +as Nature would not enable us to bear, and circumstances would not +permit us to resent. + +It was not long, however, after this contempt of contempt upon the part +of our ambassador, (who by the way represented his sovereign,) that a +new object was furnished for displaying sentiments of the same kind, +though the case was infinitely aggravated. Not the ambassador, but the +king himself, was libelled and insulted,--libelled, not by a creature of +the Directory, but by the Directory itself. At least, so Lord Malmesbury +understood it, and so he answered it in his note of the 12th November, +1796, in which he says,--"With regard to the _offensive and injurious_ +insinuations which are contained in that paper, and which are only +calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of the accommodation which +the French government professes to desire, THE KING HAS DEEMED IT FAR +BENEATH HIS DIGNITY to permit an answer to be made to them on his part, +in any manner whatsoever." + +I am of opinion, that, if his Majesty had kept aloof from that wash and +offscouring of everything that is low and barbarous in the world, it +might be well thought unworthy of his dignity to take notice of such +scurrilities: they must be considered as much the natural expression of +that kind of animal as it is the expression of the feelings of a dog to +bark. But when the king had been advised to recognize not only the +monstrous composition as a sovereign power, but, in conduct, to admit +something in it like a superiority,--when the bench of Regicide was made +at least coordinate with his throne, and raised upon a platform full as +elevated, this treatment could not be passed by under the appearance of +despising it. It would not, indeed, have been proper to keep up a war of +the same kind; but an immediate, manly, and decided resentment ought to +have been the consequence. We ought not to have waited for the +disgraceful dismissal of our ambassador. There are cases in which we may +pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some sense in it, _Non omnibus +dormio_. We might, however, have seemed ignorant of the affront; but +what was the fact? Did we dissemble or pass it by in silence? When +dignity is talked of, a language which I did not expect to hear in such +a transaction, I must say, what all the world must feel, that it was not +for the king's dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it. This +mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of the correspondence between +sovereign powers. + +This was far from the only ill effect of the policy of degradation. The +state of inferiority in which we were placed, in this vain attempt at +treaty, drove us headlong from error into error, and led us to wander +far away, not only from all the paths which have been beaten in the old +course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways +even of the most common prudence. Against all rules, after we had met +nothing but rebuffs in return to all our proposals, we made _two +confidential communications_ to those in whom we had no confidence and +who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse, we were fully aware of +the madness of the step we were taking. Ambassadors are not sent to a +hostile power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make candid, +confidential, and amicable communications. Hitherto the world has +considered it as the duty of an ambassador in such a situation to be +cautious, guarded, dexterous, and circumspect. It is true that mutual +confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the +rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level. +When, in the last century, Temple and De Witt negotiated the famous +Triple Alliance, their candor, their freedom, and the most +_confidential_ disclosures were the result of true policy. Accordingly, +in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the +United Provinces, the treaty was concluded in three days. It did not +take a much longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) +through a still more complicated transaction,--that of the _Grand +Alliance_. But in the present case, this unparalleled candor, this +unpardonable want of reserve, produced, what might have been expected +from it, the most serious evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole +plan of our demands and concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries. + +And first, it induced us to lay down the basis of a treaty which itself +had nothing to rest upon. It seems, we thought we had gained a great +point in getting this basis admitted,--that is, a basis of mutual +compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace, and +with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a +plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be proposed; because +these arrangements were not, in effect, to make the basis, but a part of +the superstructure, of the fabric of pacification. The order of things +would thus be reversed. The mutual disposition to peace would form the +reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or +the other might be constructed. This truly fundamental base being once +laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter +might be easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a view to +the establishment of a fair balance of power in Europe, had been made +the real basis of the treaty, the reciprocal value of the compensations +could not be estimated according to their proportion to each other, but +according to their proportionate relation to that end: to that great end +the whole would be subservient. The effect of the treaty would be in a +manner secured before the detail of particulars was begun, and for a +plain reason,--because the hostile spirit on both sides had been +conjured down; but if, in the full fury and unappeased rancor of war, a +little traffic is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the +consequence to those who endeavor to open that kind of petty commerce. + +To illustrate what I have said, I go back no further than to the two +last Treaties of Paris, and to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which +preceded the first of these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or +fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticize any of them. My opinions +upon some particulars of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 are published in a +pamphlet[39] which your recollection will readily bring into your view. +I recur to them only to show that their basis had not been, and never +could have been, a mere dealing of truck and barter, but that the +parties being willing, from common fatigue or common suffering, to put +an end to a war the first object of which had either been obtained or +despaired of, the lesser objects were not thought worth the price of +further contest. The parties understanding one another, so much was +given away without considering from whose budget it came, not as the +value of the objects, but as the value of peace to the parties might +require. + +At the last Treaty of Paris, the subjugation of America being despaired +of on the part of Great Britain, and the independence of America being +looked upon as secure on the part of France, the main cause of the war +was removed; and then the conquests which France had made upon us (for +we had made none of importance upon her) were surrendered with +sufficient facility. Peace was restored as peace. In America the parties +stood as they were possessed. A limit was to be settled, but settled as +a limit to secure that peace, and not at all on a system of equivalents, +for which, as we then stood with the United States, there were little or +no materials. + +At the preceding Treaty of Paris, I mean that of 1763, there was +nothing at all on which to fix a basis of compensation from reciprocal +cession of conquests. They were all on one side. The question with us +was not what we were to receive, and on what consideration, but what we +were to keep for indemnity or to cede for peace. Accordingly, no place +being left for barter, sacrifices were made on our side to peace; and we +surrendered to the French their most valuable possessions in the West +Indies without any equivalent. The rest of Europe fell soon after into +its ancient order; and the German war ended exactly where it had begun. + +The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was built upon a similar basis. All the +conquests in Europe had been made by France. She had subdued the +Austrian Netherlands, and broken open the gates of Holland. We had taken +nothing in the West Indies; and Cape Breton was a trifling business +indeed. France gave up all for peace. The Allies had given up all that +was ceded at Utrecht. Louis the Fourteenth made all, or nearly all, the +cessions at Ryswick, and at Nimeguen. In all those treaties, and in all +the preceding, as well as in the others which intervened, the question +never had been that of barter. The balance of power had been ever +assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times and by all +powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on the more or +less inclination of that balance. + +This general balance was regarded in four principal points of view: the +GREAT MIDDLE BALANCE, which comprehended Great Britain, France, and +Spain; the BALANCE OF THE NORTH; the BALANCE, external and internal, of +GERMANY; and the BALANCE OF ITALY. In all those systems of balance, +England was the power to whose custody it was thought it might be most +safely committed. + +France, as she happened to stand, secured the balance or endangered it. +Without question, she had been long the security for the balance of +Germany, and, under her auspices, the system, if not formed, had been at +least perfected. She was so in some measure with regard to Italy, more +than occasionally. She had a clear interest in the balance of the North, +and had endeavored to preserve it. But when we began to treat with the +present France, or, more properly, to prostrate ourselves to her, and to +try if we should be admitted to ransom our allies, upon a system of +mutual concession and compensation, we had not one of the usual +facilities. For, first, we had not the smallest indication of a desire +for peace on the part of the enemy, but rather the direct contrary. Men +do not make sacrifices to obtain what they do not desire: and as for the +balance of power, it was so far from being admitted by France, either on +the general system, or with regard to the particular systems that I have +mentioned, that, in the whole body of their authorized or encouraged +reports and discussions upon the theory of the diplomatic system, they +constantly rejected the very idea of the balance of power, and treated +it as the true cause of all the wars and calamities that had afflicted +Europe; and their practice was correspondent to the dogmatic positions +they had laid down. The Empire and the Papacy it was their great object +to destroy; and this, now openly avowed and steadfastly acted upon, +might have been discerned with very little acuteness of sight, from the +very first dawnings of the Revolution, to be the main drift of their +policy: for they professed a resolution to destroy everything which can +hold states together by the tie of opinion. + +Exploding, therefore, all sorts of balances, they avow their design to +erect themselves into a new description of empire, which is not grounded +on any balance, but forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of which France +is to be the head and the guardian. The law of this their empire is +anything rather than the public law of Europe, the ancient conventions +of its several states, or the ancient opinions which assign to them +superiority or preeminence of any sort, or any other kind of connection +in virtue of ancient relations. They permit, and that is all, the +temporary existence of some of the old communities: but whilst they give +to these tolerated states this temporary respite, in order to secure +them in a condition of real dependence on themselves, they invest them +on every side by a body of republics, formed on the model, and dependent +ostensibly, as well as substantially, on the will of the mother republic +to which they owe their origin. These are to be so many garrisons to +check and control the states which are to be permitted to remain on the +old model until they are ripe for a change. It is in this manner that +France, on her new system, means to form an universal empire, by +producing an universal revolution. By this means, forming a new code of +communities according to what she calls the natural rights of man and of +states, she pretends to secure eternal peace to the world, guarantied by +her generosity and justice, which are to grow with the extent of her +power. To talk of the balance of power to the governors of such a +country was a jargon which they could not understand even through an +interpreter. Before men can transact any affair, they must have a +common language to speak, and some common, recognized principles on +which they can argue; otherwise all is cross purpose and confusion. It +was, therefore, an essential preliminary to the whole proceeding, to fix +whether the balance of power, the liberties and laws of the Empire, and +the treaties of different belligerent powers in past times, when they +put an end to hostilities, were to be considered as the basis of the +present negotiation. + +The whole of the enemy's plan was known when Lord Malmesbury was sent +with his scrap of equivalents to Paris. Yet, in this unfortunate attempt +at negotiation, instead of fixing these points, and assuming the balance +of power and the peace of Europe as the basis to which all cessions on +all sides were to be subservient, our solicitor for peace was directed +to reverse that order. He was directed to make mutual concessions, on a +mere comparison of their marketable value, the base of treaty. The +balance of power was to be thrown in as an inducement, and a sort of +make-weight to supply the manifest deficiency, which must stare him and +the world in the face, between those objects which he was to require the +enemy to surrender and those which he had to offer as a fair equivalent. + +To give any force to this inducement, and to make it answer even the +secondary purpose of equalizing equivalents having in themselves no +natural proportionate value, it supposed that the enemy, contrary to the +most notorious fact, did admit this balance of power to be of some +value, great or small; whereas it is plain, that, in the enemy's +estimate of things, the consideration of the balance of power, as we +have said before, was so far from going in diminution of the value of +what the Directory was desired to surrender, or of giving an additional +price to our objects offered in exchange, that the hope of the utter +destruction of that balance became a new motive to the junto of +Regicides for preserving, as a means for realizing that hope, what we +wished them to abandon. + +Thus stood the basis of the treaty, on laying the first stone of the +foundation. At the very best, upon our side, the question stood upon a +mere naked bargain and sale. Unthinking people here triumphed, when they +thought they had obtained it; whereas, when obtained as a basis of a +treaty, it was just the worst we could possibly have chosen. As to our +offer to cede a most unprofitable, and, indeed, beggarly, chargeable +counting-house or two in the East Indies, we ought not to presume that +they would consider this as anything else than a mockery. As to anything +of real value, we had nothing under heaven to offer, (for which we were +not ourselves in a very dubious struggle,) except the island of +Martinico only. When this object was to be weighed against the +Directorial conquests, merely as an object of a value at market, the +principle of barter became perfectly ridiculous: a single quarter in the +single city of Amsterdam was worth ten Martinicos, and would have sold +for many more years' purchase in any market overt in Europe. How was +this gross and glaring defect in the objects of exchange to be supplied? +It was to be made up by argument. And what was that argument? The +extreme utility of possessions in the West Indies to the augmentation of +the naval power of France. A very curious topic of argument to be +proposed and insisted on by an ambassador of Great Britain! It is +directly and plainly this:--"Come, we know that of all things you wish a +naval power, and it is natural you should, who wish to destroy the very +sources of the British greatness, to overpower our marine, to destroy +our commerce, to eradicate our foreign influence, and to lay us open to +an invasion, which at one stroke may complete our servitude and ruin and +expunge us from among the nations of the earth. Here I have it in my +budget, the infallible arcanum for that purpose. You are but novices in +the art of naval resources. Let you have the West Indies back, and your +maritime preponderance is secured, for which you would do well to be +moderate in your demands upon the Austrian Netherlands." + +Under any circumstances, this is a most extraordinary topic of argument; +but it is rendered by much the more unaccountable, when we are told, +that, if the war has been diverted from the great object of establishing +society and good order in Europe by destroying the usurpation in France, +this diversion was made to increase the naval resources and power of +Great Britain, and to lower, if not annihilate, those of the marine of +France. I leave all this to the very serious reflection of every +Englishman. + +This basis was no sooner admitted than the rejection of a treaty upon +that sole foundation was a thing of course. The enemy did not think it +worthy of a discussion, as in truth it was not; and immediately, as +usual, they began, in the most opprobrious and most insolent manner, to +question our sincerity and good faith: whereas, in truth, there was no +one symptom wanting of openness and fair dealing. What could be more +fair than to lay open to an enemy all that you wished to obtain, and the +price you meant to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your +ingenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his honest heart to +you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a +fault of another kind: there was much weakness,--there was an eager and +impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of +attempting the connection by any means, however manifestly feeble and +ineffectual. The event was committed to chance,--that is, to such a +manifestation of the desire of France for peace as would induce the +Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. +Accordingly, the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly +reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury had set his foot on shore +at Calais. + +It has been said that the Directory was compelled against its will to +accept the basis of barter (as if that had tended to accelerate the work +of pacification!) by the voice of all France. Had this been the case, +the Directors would have continued to listen to that voice to which it +seems they were so obedient: they would have proceeded with the +negotiation upon that basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke +up the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to +violate all the principles of treaty, and weakly, rashly, and +unguardedly to expose, without any counter proposition, the whole of our +project with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without holding out +the smallest hope that they would admit the smallest part of our +pretensions. + +When they had thus drawn from us all that they could draw out, they +expelled Lord Malmesbury, and they appealed, for the propriety of their +conduct, to that very France which we thought proper to suppose had +driven them to this fine concession: and I do not find that in either +division of the family of thieves, the younger branch, or the elder, or +in any other body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited, or any +tumult raised, or anything like the virulence of opposition which was +shown to the king's ministers here, on account of that transaction. + +Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the +Directory will have that tenderness for the carcass of their country, by +whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin, they +are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more +moderate and reasonable way of thinking and acting. In the name of +wonder, what has inspired our ministry with this hope any more than with +their former expectations? + +Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow +out of the usual grounds of despair? What is there to encourage them, in +the conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, +from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in +which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? Are they +not the identical men who, from the base and sordid vices which belonged +to their original place and situation, aspired to the dignity of +crimes,--and from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most +knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery, sacrilege, and +assassination in all its forms, till at last they had imbrued their +impious hands in the blood of their sovereign? Is it from these men that +we are to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country, and this +sacred regard for the peace and happiness of all nations? + +But it seems there is still another lurking hope, akin to that which +duped us so egregiously before, when our delightful basis was accepted: +we still flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will compel +this Directory to more moderation. Whence does this hope arise? What +public voice is there in France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, +since this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, +military force to guard them, are indulged in a sufficient liberty of +writing; and some of them write well, undoubtedly. But the world knows +that in France there is no public,--that the country is composed but of +two descriptions, audacious tyrants and trembling slaves. The contests +between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned in +France. The only thing which there appears like spirit is amongst their +late associates, and fastest friends of the Directory,--the more furious +and untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented member of the +faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens +every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of +their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows, who now +exercise a more regular and therefore a somewhat less ferocious tyranny. +Most of the slaves choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to +those who are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like wolves, are a +little more tame from being a little less hungry, in preference to an +irruption of the famished devourers who are prowling and howling about +the fold. + +This circumstance assures some degree of permanence to the power of +those whom we know to be permanently our rancorous and implacable +enemies. But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we +have ourselves given a further and far better security, by rendering the +cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but +unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, +after the miserable slaughters which have been made in that body, after +all their losses by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert +themselves against the force of the usurpation evidently countenanced +and upheld by those very princes who had called them to arm for the +support of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing these fleeting +hopes of ours from point to point of the political horizon, are they at +last really found? Not where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen +used to be placed, in our own courage and in our own virtues, but in the +moderation and virtue of the most atrocious monsters that have ever +disgraced and plagued mankind. + +The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same +as in the case of all other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded +on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration. Necessity, as it has +no law, so it has no shame. But moral necessity is not like +metaphysical, or even physical. In that category it is a word of loose +signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds. To the +low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes an invincible necessity. +"The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way, and I shall be +devoured in the streets." But when the necessity pleaded is not in the +nature of things, but in the vices of him who alleges it, the whining +tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignation: +because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable existence, +without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they +aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would +draw from the compassion of others what men ought to owe to their own +spirit and their own exertions. + +I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade ourselves, it is the +degradation which will subject us to the yoke of necessity, and not that +it is necessity which has brought on our degradation. In this same +chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open +subscription of last year, with all its circumstances, must have given +us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly +discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a lame negotiation +abroad, and that the whiff and wind of it must at once have disposed the +enemies of all tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the face +of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had the direct +contrary effect; for very soon after the loan became public at Paris, +the negotiation ended, and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My +view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from the influence +which it might have on the enemy, but on account of the temper which it +indicated in our own people. This alone is a consideration of any +importance; because all calculation formed upon a supposed relation of +the habitudes of others to our own, under the present circumstances, is +weak and fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by what we are, +or by what we wish him to be, but by what we must know he actually is: +unless we choose to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of +all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all his actions. We may +be deluded; but we cannot pretend that we have been disappointed. The +old rule of _Ne te quaesiveris extra_ is a precept as available in policy +as it is in morals. Let us leave off speculating upon the disposition +and the wants of the enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let us +ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are our means of discharging +them. In what heart are you at home? How far may an English minister +confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the force of an English +people? What does he find us, when he puts us to the proof of what +English interest and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an answer +to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The +effect on the enemy is not in what he may speculate on our resources, +but in what he shall feel from our arms. + +The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond a doubt three capital +points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the +future liberty and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the loan +demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of +this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the +maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and its +glory to hold and to watch over,--the balance of power throughout the +Christian world. Secondly, it brings to light what, under the most +discouraging appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its ancient +physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit +is still alive in the British nation. It proves that for their +application there is a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy +above them. It proves that there exists, though not always visible, a +spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually +invoked,--a spirit which will give no equivocal response, but such as +will hearten the timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating +prudence,--a spirit which will be ready to perform all the tasks that +shall be imposed upon it by public honor. Thirdly, the loan displays an +abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his +present servants, in the prosecution of a war which the people consider, +not as a war made on the suggestion of ministers, and to answer the +purposes of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war of their +own, and in defence of that very property which they expend for its +support,--a war for that order of things from which everything valuable +that they possess is derived, and in which order alone it can possibly +be maintained. + +I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from which I draw +inferences so favorable to the spirit of the people and to its just +expectation from ministers, that the eighteen million loan is to be +considered in no other light than as taking advantage of a very +lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do not in truth believe +it. All the circumstances which attended the subscription strongly spoke +a different language. Be it, however, as these detractors say. This with +me derogates little, or rather nothing at all, from the political value +and importance of the fact. I should be very sorry, if the transaction +was not such a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair one. A +corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, +cannot be too much condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony +still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The value of money must +be judged, like everything else, from its rate at market. To force that +market, or any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For a small +temporary benefit, the spring of all public credit might be relaxed +forever. The moneyed men have a right to look to advantage in the +investment of their property. To advance their money, they risk it; and +the risk is to be included in the price. If they were to incur a loss, +that loss would amount to a tax on that peculiar species of property. In +effect, it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all +things,--unequal taxation. It would throw upon one description of +persons in the community that burden which ought by fair and equitable +distribution to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity +should be exempt; none (preserving due proportion) on account of the +scantiness of their means. The moment a man is exempted from the +maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it,--he +loses the place of a citizen. + +So it is in all _taxation_. But in a _bargain_, when terms of loss are +looked for by the borrower from the lender, compulsion, or what +virtually is compulsion, introduces itself into the place of treaty. +When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion +must determine. But the compulsion ought to be known, and well defined, +and well distinguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the energy of +compulsion, while compulsion destroys the freedom of a bargain. The +advantage of both is lost by the confusion of things in their nature +utterly unsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into that in +which freedom and existence are the same: I mean credit. The moment that +shame or fear or force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, +credit perishes. + +There must be some impulse, besides public spirit, to put private +interest into motion along with it. Moneyed men ought to be allowed to +set a value on their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed +men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means +of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though +sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious excess, is the +grand cause of prosperity to all states. In this natural, this +reasonable, this powerful, this prolific principle, it is for the +satirist to expose the ridiculous,--it is for the moralist to censure +the vicious,--it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate the hard and +cruel,--it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, +and the oppression; but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds +it, with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on +its head. It is his part, in this case, as it is in all other cases, +where he is to make use of the general energies of Nature, to take them +as he finds them. + +After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too commonly, almost +indeed generally, it is imagined, that the public borrower and the +private lender are two adverse parties, with different and contending +interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly taken from the +other. Constituted as our system of finance and taxation is, the +interests of the contracting parties cannot well be separated, whatever +they may reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to-day +to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own payment. For example, +the last loan is raised on public taxes, which are designed to produce +annually two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two +millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; +but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, +and you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in this state of +things. + +I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, +old or new, (I speak of certain classes in life,) will find a full third +of it to go in taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income +of two millions will probably furnish 665,000_l._ (I avoid broken +numbers) towards the payment of its own interest, or to the sinking of +its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it +any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to +consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but +not wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from the interest be +spent, the above proportion returns again into the public stock; +insomuch that, taking the interest of the whole debt to be twelve +million three hundred thousand pound, (it is something more,) not less +than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again +to the public through the channel of imposition. If the whole or any +part of that income be saved, so much new capital is generated,--the +infallible operation of which is to lower the value of money, and +consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit. + +I take the expenditure of the _capitalist_, not the value of the +capital, as my standard; because it is the standard upon which, amongst +us, property, as an object of taxation, is rated. In this country, land +and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax. We preserve the +faculty from the expense. Our taxes, for the far greater portion, fly +over the heads of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with better +ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the harsh discipline of a +rigid necessity. With us, labor and frugality, the parents of riches, +are spared, and wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the common +stock, the moment they no longer enrich it by their industry or their +self-denial, their luxury and even their ease are obliged to pay +contribution to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but +because they are unproductive. If, in fact, the interest paid by the +public had not thus revolved again into its own fund, if this secretion +had not again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would have been +impossible for the nation to have existed to this time under such a +debt. But under the debt it does exist and flourish; and this +flourishing state of existence in no small degree is owing to the +contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken +from that capital by too close a bargain is but a delusive advantage: it +is so much lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the +one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it +is a consideration of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought +never wholly to lose sight. + +It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of +men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: +it is our business to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that +are derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues are rare, so +they must be unproductive. It is a good thing for a moneyed man to +pledge his property on the welfare of his country: he shows that he +places his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in this circle, we +know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be +also." For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to +see the attempts which have been made, with more good meaning than +foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this +loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is +established, there voluntary contribution can answer no purpose but to +disorder and disturb it in its course. To recur to such aids is, for so +much, to dissolve the community, and to return to a state of unconnected +Nature. And even if such a supply should be productive in a degree +commensurate to its object, it must also be productive of much vexation +and much oppression. Either the citizens by the proposed duties pay +their proportion according to some rate made by public authority, or +they do not. If the law be well made, and the contributions founded on +just proportions, everything superadded by something that is not as +regular as law, and as uniform in its operation, will become more or +less out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be not made upon +proper calculation, it is a disgrace to the public; wisdom, which fails +in skill to assess the citizen in just measure and according to his +means. But the hand of authority is not always the most heavy hand. It +is obvious that men may be oppressed by many ways besides those which +take their course from the supreme power of the state. Suppose the +payment to be wholly discretionary. Whatever has its origin in caprice +is sure not to improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is +impossible for each private individual to have any measure conformable +to the particular condition of each of his fellow-citizens, or to the +general exigencies of his country. 'Tis a random shot at best. + +When men proceed in this irregular mode, the first contributor is apt to +grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure +their means by his own envy, and not by the real state of their +fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which it may in them be an act +of the grossest imprudence to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with +which people will look upon a provision for the public which is bought +by discord at the expense of social quiet. Hence the bitter +heart-burnings, and the war of tongues, which is so often the prelude to +other wars. Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which is +according to the free will of the giver. A false shame, or a false +glory, against his feelings and his judgment, may tax an individual to +the detriment of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of +public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private +duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions +which he is to furnish according to the prescript of law. But what is +the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this +mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length leaves the +comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to prescribe to the +opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to +make of their fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the +subversion of all property. + +Far, very far, am I from supposing that such things enter into the +purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal has led them to this kind +of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their +intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will +perversely improve to the worst of their purposes. An ill-founded +plausibility in great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen the +wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, +pursuing this very course, and ending in this very event. These +projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution +to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts. These, for the +greater part, were not more ridiculous in the mode than contemptible in +the project. The other, which they called the patriotic contribution, +was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes of individuals, but +at their own will and on their own estimate; but this contribution +threatening to fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made it +compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and +ending, as all the frauds of power end, in plain violence. All these +devices to produce an involuntary will were under the pretext of +relieving the more indigent classes; but the principle of voluntary +contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower +classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the +regular, methodical payments to the state, as so many badges of slavery. +Thus all regular revenue failing, these impostors, raising the +superstructure on the same cheats with which they had laid the +foundation of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the +possessions of the rich, confiscated the whole, and, to prevent them +from reclaiming their rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the +process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a +greater degree of rapidity than could be expected. + +My opinion, then, is, that public contributions ought only to be raised +by the public will. By the judicious form of our Constitution, the +public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In its origin +it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, +unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and +wisdom of the whole popular mass, in the only way in which will and +wisdom can go together. This voluntary grant obtaining in its progress +the force of a law, a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and +consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and +satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to +arrogate anything to himself. If their will complies with their +obligation, the great end is answered in the happiest mode; if the will +resists the burden, every one loses a great part of his own will as a +common lot. After all, perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on +luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches so near as to be +confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be +with truth termed voluntary. + +I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as leading to a solution +of that question which I proposed in my first letter: "Whether the +inability of the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a +submission to the indignities and the calamities of a peace with the +Regicide power?" But give me leave to pursue this point a little +further. + +I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been +upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, +that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by +the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the +burden really lies, and where it presses, we must divide the people. As +to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their +earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a +greater proportion than the common sources of populousness abundantly +fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned pay according to the +produce of the soil, and, where the soil fails, according to the +operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous +labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to +accidental malady. I say nothing to the policy of the provision for the +poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This +is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of it as of a fact, +taken with others, to support me in my denial that hitherto any one of +the ordinary sources of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war. +I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has been less than the +supply. To say that in war no man must be killed is to say that there +ought to be no war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and who +would display their humanity at the expense of their honesty or their +understanding. If more lives are lost in this war than necessity +requires, they are lost by misconduct or mistake: but if the hostility +be just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be abandoned. + +That the stock of the common people, in numbers, is not lessened, any +more than the causes are impaired, is manifest, without being at the +pains of an actual numeration. An improved and improving agriculture, +which implies a great augmentation of labor, has not yet found itself at +a stand, no, not for a single moment, for want of the necessary hands, +either in the settled progress of husbandry or in the occasional +pressure of harvests. I have even reason to believe that there has been +a much smaller importation, or the demand of it, from a neighboring +kingdom, than in former times, when agriculture was more limited in its +extent and its means, and when the time was a season of profound peace. +On the contrary, the prolific fertility of country life has poured its +superfluity of population into the canals, and into other public works, +which of late years have been undertaken to so amazing an extent, and +which have not only not been discontinued, but, beyond all expectation, +pushed on with redoubled vigor, in a war that calls for so many of our +men and so much of our riches. An increasing capital calls for labor, +and an increasing population answers to the call. Our manufactures, +augmented both for the supply of foreign and domestic consumption, +reproducing, with the means of life, the multitudes which they use and +waste, (and which many of them devour much more surely and much more +largely than the war,) have always found the laborious hand ready for +the liberal pay. That the price of the soldier is highly raised is true. +In part this rise may be owing to some measures not so well considered +in the beginning of this war; but the grand cause has been the +reluctance of that class of people from whom the soldiery is taken to +enter into a military life,--not that, but, once entered into, it has +its conveniences, and even its pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier +who, at the intercession of his friends, and at their no small charge, +had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not +eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant +occupation and the augmented stipend found in towns and villages and +farms, which leaves a smaller number of persons to be disposed of. The +price of men for new and untried ways of life must bear a proportion to +the profits of that mode of existence from whence they are to be bought. + +So far as to the stock of the common people, as it consists in their +persons. As to the other part, which consists in their earnings, I have +to say, that the rates of wages are very greatly augmented almost +through the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been raised from +seven to nine shillings in the week, for the same laborer, performing +the same task, and no greater. Except something in the malt taxes and +the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax imposed for very many +years past which affects the laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on +the other hand, the tax upon houses not having more than seven windows +(that is, upon cottages) was repealed the very year before the +commencement of the present war. On the whole, I am satisfied that the +humblest class, and that class which touches the most nearly on the +lowest, out of which it is continually emerging, and to which it is +continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it +pays. That class receives two million sterling annually from the +classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public +contribution. + +I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of that language, so +ill suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so +unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered, +concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions +during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is only to be +ascribed to the intolerable license with which the newspapers break not +only the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum, +when they personate great men, and, like bad poets, make the heroes of +the piece talk more like us Grub-Street scribblers than in a style +consonant to persons of gravity and importance in the state. It was easy +to demonstrate the cause, and the sole cause, of that rise in the grand +article and first necessary of life. It would appear that it had no more +connection with the war than the moderate price to which all sorts of +grain were reduced, soon after the return of Lord Malmesbury, had with +the state of politics and the fate of his Lordship's treaty. I have +quite as good reason (that is, no reason at all) to attribute this +abundance to the longer continuance of the war as the gentlemen who +personate leading members of Parliament have had for giving the enhanced +price to that war, at a more early period of its duration. Oh, the folly +of us poor creatures, who, in the midst of our distresses or our +escapes, are ready to claw or caress one another, upon matters that so +seldom depend on our wisdom or our weakness, on our good or evil conduct +towards each other! + +An untimely shower or an unseasonable drought, a frost too long +continued or too suddenly broken up with rain and tempest, the blight of +the spring or the smut of the harvest will do more to cause the distress +of the belly than all the contrivances of all statesmen can do to +relieve it. Let government protect and encourage industry, secure +property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all that +they have to do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these +affairs, the better; the rest is in the hands of our Master and theirs. +We are in a constitution of things wherein "_modo sol nimius, modo +corripit imber_."--But I will push this matter no further. As I have +said a good deal upon it at various times during my public service, and +have lately written something on it, which may yet see the light, I +shall content myself now with observing that the vigorous and laborious +class of life has lately got, from the _bon-ton_ of the humanity of this +day, the name of the "_laboring poor_." We have heard many plans for the +relief of the "_laboring poor_." This puling jargon is not as innocent +as it is foolish. In meddling with great affairs, weakness is never +innoxious. Hitherto the name of poor (in the sense in which it is used +to excite compassion) has not been used for those who can, but for those +who cannot labor,--for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for +languishing and decrepit age; but when we affect to pity, as poor, those +who must labor or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the +condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man, that he must eat his +bread by the sweat of his brow,--that is, by the sweat of his body or +the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as +might be expected, from the curses of the Father of all blessings; it is +tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly +from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much +more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who +would elude the tasks which are put upon them by the great Master +Workman of the world, who, in His dealings with His creatures, +sympathizes with their weakness, and, speaking of a creation wrought by +mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of _labor_ and one of +_rest_. I do not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his mind and +vigorous in his arms, I cannot call such a man _poor_; I cannot pity my +kind as a kind, merely because they are men. This affected pity only +tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek +resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than +their own industry and frugality and sobriety. Whatever may be the +intention (which, because I do not know, I cannot dispute) of those who +would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in +the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies. + +In turning our view from the lower to the higher classes, it will not be +necessary for me to show at any length that the stock of the latter, as +it consists in their numbers, has not yet suffered any material +diminution. I have not seen or heard it asserted; I have no reason to +believe it: there is no want of officers, that I have ever understood, +for the new ships which we commission, or the new regiments which we +raise. In the nature of things, it is not with their persons that the +higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war. +There is another, and not less important part, which rests with almost +exclusive weight upon them. They furnish the means + + "how War may, best upheld, + Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, + In all her equipage." + +Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal +service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute, +and in their full and fair proportion, according to the relative +proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute all the +mind that actuates the whole machine. The fortitude required of them is +very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier or +common sailor in the face of danger and death: it is not a passion, it +is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, +deliberate principle, always present, always equable,--having no +connection with anger,--tempering honor with prudence,--incited, +invigorated, and sustained by a generous love of fame,--informed, +moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public +ends,--flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the +heart and the head,--carrying in itself its own commission, and proving +its title to every other command by the first and most difficult +command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it is a fortitude which +unites with the courage of the field the more exalted and refined +courage of the council,--which knows as well to retreat as to +advance,--which can conquer as well by delay as by the rapidity of a +march or the impetuosity of an attack,--which can be, with Fabius, the +black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or, with Scipio, +the thunderbolt of war,--which, undismayed by false shame, can patiently +endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can undergo, in the +taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect, +and "mouth honor" of those from whom it should meet a cheerful +obedience,--which, undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume that +most awful moral responsibility of deciding when victory may be too +dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and when the safety and +glory of their country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands. +Different stations of command may call for different modifications of +this fortitude, but the character ought to be the same in all. And +never, in the most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it shine +with brighter lustre than in the present sanguinary and ferocious +hostilities, wherever the British arms have been carried. But in this +most arduous and momentous conflict, which from its nature should have +roused us to new and unexampled efforts, I know not how it has been that +we have never put forth half the strength which we have exerted in +ordinary wars. In the fatal battles which have drenched the Continent +with blood and shaken the system of Europe to pieces, we have never had +any considerable army, of a magnitude to be compared to the least of +those by which in former times we so gloriously asserted our place as +protectors, not oppressors, at the head of the great commonwealth of +Europe. We have never manfully met the danger in front; and when the +enemy, resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning +the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal energy of the +destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of +the neighboring colonies, drove forth, by one sweeping law of +unprecedented despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to +overwhelm the countries and states which had for centuries stood the +firm barriers against the ambition of France, we drew back the arm of +our military force, which had never been more than half raised to oppose +him. From that time we have been combating only with the other arm of +our naval power,--the right arm of England, I admit,--but which struck +almost unresisted, with blows that could never reach the heart of the +hostile mischief. From that time, without a single effort to regain +those outworks which ever till now we so strenuously maintained, as the +strong frontier of our own dignity and safety no less than the liberties +of Europe,--with but one feeble attempt to succor those brave, faithful, +and numerous allies, whom, for the first time since the days of our +Edwards and Henrys, we now have in the bosom of France itself,--we have +been intrenching and fortifying and garrisoning ourselves at home, we +have been redoubling security on security to protect ourselves from +invasion, which has now first become to us a serious object of alarm and +terror. Alas! the few of us who have protracted life in any measure near +to the extreme limits of our short period have been condemned to see +strange things,--new systems of policy, new principles, and not only new +men, but what might appear a new species of men. I believe that any +person who was of age to take a part in public affairs forty years ago +(if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his memory) would +hardly credit his senses, when he should hear from the highest authority +that an army of two hundred thousand men was kept up in this island, and +that in the neighboring island there were at least fourscore thousand +more. But when he had recovered from his surprise on being told of this +army, which has not its parallel, what must be his astonishment to be +told again that this mighty force was kept up for the mere purpose of an +inert and passive defence, and that in its far greater part it was +disabled by its constitution and very essence from defending us against +an enemy by any one preventive stroke or any one operation of active +hostility? What must his reflections be, on learning further, that a +fleet of five hundred men of war, the best appointed, and to the full as +ably commanded as this country ever had upon the sea, was for the +greater part employed in carrying on the same system of unenterprising +defence? What must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers +the former energy of England, when he is given to understand that these +two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, +should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town? What would such a man, +what would any man think, if the garrison of so strange a fortress +should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make a sally,--and +that, contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war, an infinitely +inferior army, with the shattered relics of an almost annihilated navy, +ill-found and ill-manned, may with safety besiege this superior +garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin the place, +merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? Indeed, +indeed, my dear friend, I look upon this matter of our defensive system +as much the most important of all considerations at this moment. It has +oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily +distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you know that I am. +Should it please Providence to restore to me even the late weak remains +of my strength, I propose to make this matter the subject of a +particular discussion. I only mean here to argue, that the mode of +conducting the war on our part, be it good or bad, has prevented even +the common havoc of war in our population, and especially among that +class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way +amidst the perils and slaughter of the field of battle. + +The other causes which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower +classes, but which I have shown not to have existed to any such degree +during this war,--penury, cold, hunger, nakedness,--do not easily reach +the higher orders of society. I do not dread for them the slightest +taste of these calamities from the distress and pressure of the war. +They have much more to dread in that way from the confiscations, the +rapines, the burnings, and the massacres that may follow in the train of +a peace which shall establish the devastating and depopulating +principles and example of the French Regicides in security and triumph +and dominion. In the ordinary course of human affairs, any check to +population among men in ease and opulence is less to be apprehended from +what they may suffer than from what they enjoy. Peace is more likely to +be injurious to them in that respect than war. The excesses of delicacy, +repose, and satiety are as unfavorable as the extremes of hardship, +toil, and want to the increase and multiplication of our kind. Indeed, +the abuse of the bounties of Nature, much more surely than any partial +privation of them, tends to intercept that precious boon of a second +and dearer life in our progeny, which was bestowed in the first great +command to man from the All-Gracious Giver of all,--whose name be +blessed, whether He gives or takes away! His hand, in every page of His +book, has written the lesson of moderation. Our physical well-being, our +moral worth, our social happiness, our political tranquillity, all +depend on that control of all our appetites and passions which the +ancients designed by the cardinal virtue of _temperance_. + +The only real question to our present purpose, with regard to the higher +classes, is, How stands the account of their stock, as it consists in +wealth of every description? Have the burdens of the war compelled them +to curtail any part of their former expenditure?--which, I have before +observed, affords the only standard of estimating property as an object +of taxation. Do they enjoy all the same conveniences, the same comforts, +the same elegancies, the same luxuries, in the same or in as many +different modes as they did before the war? + +In the last eleven years there have been no less than three solemn +inquiries into the finances of the kingdom, by three different +committees of your House. The first was in the year 1786. On that +occasion, I remember, the report of the committee was examined, and +sifted and bolted to the bran, by a gentleman whose keen and powerful +talents I have ever admired. He thought there was not sufficient +evidence to warrant the pleasing representation which the committee had +made of our national prosperity. He did not believe that our public +revenue could continue to be so productive as they had assumed. He even +went the length of recording his own inferences of doubt in a set of +resolutions which now stand upon your journals. And perhaps the +retrospect on which the report proceeded did not go far enough back to +allow any sure and satisfactory average for a ground of solid +calculation. But what was the event? When the next committee sat, in +1791, they found, that, on an average of the last four years, their +predecessors had fallen short, in their estimate of the permanent taxes, +by more than three hundred and forty thousand pounds a year. Surely, +then, if I can show, that, in the produce of those same taxes, and more +particularly of such as affect articles of luxurious use and +consumption, the four years of the war have equalled those four years of +peace, flourishing as they were beyond the most sanguine speculations, I +may expect to hear no more of the distress occasioned by the war. + +The additional burdens which have been laid on some of those same +articles might reasonably claim some allowance to be made. Every new +advance of the price to the consumer is a new incentive to him to +retrench the quantity of his consumption; and if, upon the whole, he +pays the same, his property, computed by the standard of what he +voluntarily pays, must remain the same. But I am willing to forego that +fair advantage in the inquiry. I am willing that the receipts of the +permanent taxes which existed before January, 1793, should be compared +during the war, and during the period of peace which I have mentioned. I +will go further. Complete accounts of the year 1791 were separately laid +before your House. I am ready to stand by a comparison of the produce of +four years up to the beginning of the year 1792 with that of the war. Of +the year immediately previous to hostilities I have not been able to +obtain any perfect documents; but I have seen enough to satisfy me, +that, although a comparison including that year might be less favorable, +yet it would not essentially injure my argument. + +You will always bear in mind, my dear Sir, that I am not considering +whether, if the common enemy of the quiet of Europe had not forced us to +take up arms in our own defence, the spring-tide of our prosperity might +not have flowed higher than the mark at which it now stands. That +consideration is connected with the question of the justice and the +necessity of the war. It is a question which I have long since +discussed. I am now endeavoring to ascertain whether there exists, in +fact, any such necessity as we hear every day asserted, to furnish a +miserable pretext for counselling us to surrender at discretion our +conquests, our honor, our dignity, our very independence, and, with it, +all that is dear to man. It will be more than sufficient for that +purpose, if I can make it appear that we have been stationary during the +war. What, then, will be said, if, in reality, it shall be proved that +there is every indication of increased and increasing wealth, not only +poured into the grand reservoir of the national capital, but diffused +through all the channels of all the higher classes, and giving life and +activity, as it passes, to the agriculture, the manufactures, the +commerce, and the navigation of the country? + +The Finance Committee which has been appointed in this session has +already made two reports. Every conclusion that I had before drawn, as +you know, from my own observation, I have the satisfaction of seeing +there confirmed by that great public authority. Large as was the sum by +which the committee of 1791 found the estimate of 1786 to have been +exceeded in the actual produce of four years of peace, their own +estimate has been exceeded during the war by a sum more than one third +larger. The same taxes have yielded more than half a million beyond +their calculation. They yielded this, notwithstanding the stoppage of +the distilleries, against which, you may remember, I privately +remonstrated. With an allowance for that defalcation, they have yielded +sixty thousand pounds annually above the actual average of the preceding +four years of peace. I believe this to have been without parallel in all +former wars. If regard be had to the great and unavoidable burdens of +the present war, I am confident of the fact. + +But let us descend to particulars. The taxes which go by the general +name of Assessed Taxes comprehend the whole, or nearly the whole, +domestic establishment of the rich. They include some things which +belong to the middling, and even to all but the very lowest classes. +They now consist of the duties on houses and windows, on male servants, +horses, and carriages. They did also extend to cottages, to female +servants, wagons, and carts used in husbandry, previous to the year +1792,--when, with more enlightened policy, at the moment that the +possibility of war could not be out of the contemplation of any +statesman, the wisdom of Parliament confined them to their present +objects. I shall give the gross assessment for five years, as I find it +in the Appendix to the Second Report of your committee. + +1791 ending 5th April 1792 L1,706,334 +1792 1793 1,585,991 +1793 1794 1,597,623 +1794 1795 1,608,196 +1795 1796 1,625,874 + +Here will be seen a gradual increase during the whole progress of the +war; and if I am correctly informed, the rise in the last year, after +every deduction that can be made, affords the most consoling and +encouraging prospect. It is enormously out of all proportion. + +There are some other taxes which seem to have a reference to the same +general head. The present minister many years ago subjected bricks and +tiles to a duty under the excise. It is of little consequence to our +present consideration, whether these materials have been employed in +building more commodious, more elegant, and more magnificent +habitations, or in enlarging, decorating, and remodelling those which +sufficed for our plainer ancestors. During the first two years of the +war, they paid so largely to the public revenue, that in 1794 a new duty +was laid upon them, which was equal to one half of the old, and which +has produced upwards of 165,000_l._ in the last three years. Yet, +notwithstanding the pressure of this additional weight,[40] there has +been an actual augmentation in the consumption. The only two other +articles which come under this description are the stamp-duty on gold +and silver plate, and the customs on glass plates. This latter is now, I +believe, the single instance of costly furniture to be found in the +catalogue of our imports. If it were wholly to vanish, I should not +think we were ruined. Both the duties have risen, during the war, very +considerably in proportion to the total of their produce. + +We have no tax among us on the most necessary articles of food. The +receipts of our Custom-House, under the head of Groceries, afford us, +however, some means of calculating our luxuries of the table. The +articles of tea, coffee, and cocoa-nuts I would propose to omit, and to +take them instead from the excise, as best showing what is consumed at +home. Upon this principle, adding them all together, (with the exception +of sugar, for a reason which I shall afterwards mention,) I find that +they have produced, in one mode of comparison, upwards of 272,000_l._, +and in the other mode upwards of 165,000_l._, more during the war than +in peace.[41] An additional duty was also laid in 1795 on tea, another +on coffee, and a third on raisins,--an article, together with currants, +of much more extensive use than would readily be imagined. The balance +in favor of our argument would have been much enhanced, if our coffee +and fruit ships from the Mediterranean had arrived, last year, at their +usual season. They do not appear in these accounts. This was one +consequence arising (would to God that none more afflicting to Italy, to +Europe, and the whole civilized world had arisen!) from our impolitic +and precipitate desertion of that important maritime station. As to +sugar,[42] I have excluded it from the groceries, because the account of +the customs is not a perfect criterion of the consumption, much having +been reexported to the North of Europe, which used to be supplied by +France; and in the official papers which I have followed there are no +materials to furnish grounds for computing this reexportation. The +increase on the face of our entries is immense during the four years of +war,--little short of thirteen hundred thousand pounds. + +The increase of the duties on beer has been regularly progressive, or +nearly so, to a very large amount.[43] It is a good deal above a +million, and is more than equal to one eighth of the whole produce. +Under this general head some other liquors are included,--cider, perry, +and mead, as well as vinegar and verjuice; but these are of very +trifling consideration. The excise duties on wine, having sunk a little +during the first two years of the war, were rapidly recovering their +level again. In 1795 a heavy additional duty was imposed upon them, and +a second in the following year; yet, being compared with four years of +peace to 1790, they actually exhibit a small gain to the revenue. And +low as the importation may seem in 1796, when contrasted with any year +since the French treaty in 1787, it is still more than 3000 tuns above +the average importation for three years previous to that period. I have +added sweets, from which our factitious wines are made; and I would have +added spirits, but that the total alteration of the duties in 1789, and +the recent interruption of our distilleries, rendered any comparison +impracticable. + +The ancient staple of our island, in which we are clothed, is very +imperfectly to be traced on the books of the Custom-House: but I know +that our woollen manufactures flourish. I recollect to have seen that +fact very fully established, last year, from the registers kept in the +West Riding of Yorkshire. This year, in the West of England, I received +a similar account, on the authority of a respectable clothier in that +quarter, whose testimony can less be questioned, because, in his +political opinions, he is adverse, as I understand, to the continuance +of the war. The principal articles of female dress for some time past +have been muslins and calicoes.[44] These elegant fabrics of our own +looms in the East, which serve for the remittance of our own revenues, +have lately been imitated at home, with improving success, by the +ingenious and enterprising manufacturers of Manchester, Paisley, and +Glasgow. At the same time the importation from Bengal has kept pace with +the extension of our own dexterity and industry; while the sale of our +printed goods,[45] of both kinds, has been with equal steadiness +advanced by the taste and execution of our designers and artists. Our +woollens and cottons, it is true, are not all for the home market. They +do not distinctly prove, what is my present point, our own wealth by our +own expense. I admit it: we export them in great and growing quantities: +and they who croak themselves hoarse about the decay of our trade may +put as much of this account as they choose to the creditor side of money +received from other countries in payment for British skill and labor. +They may settle the items to their own liking, where all goes to +demonstrate our riches. I shall be contented here with whatever they +will have the goodness to leave me, and pass to another entry, which is +less ambiguous,--I mean that of silk.[46] The manufactory itself is a +forced plant. We have been obliged to guard it from foreign competition +by very strict prohibitory laws. What we import is the raw and prepared +material, which is worked up in various ways, and worn in various shapes +by both sexes. After what we have just seen, you will probably be +surprised to learn that the quantity of silk imported during the war has +been much greater than it was previously in peace; and yet we must all +remember, to our mortification, that several of our silk ships fell a +prey to Citizen Admiral Richery. You will hardly expect me to go through +the tape and thread, and all the other small wares of haberdashery and +millinery to be gleaned up among our imports. But I shall make one +observation, and with great satisfaction, respecting them. They +gradually diminish, as our own manufactures of the same description +spread into their places; while the account of ornamental articles which +our country does not produce, and we cannot wish it to produce, +continues, upon the whole, to rise, in spite of all the caprices of +fancy and fashion. Of this kind are the different furs[47] used for +muffs, trimmings, and linings, which, as the chief of the kind, I shall +particularize. You will find them below. + +The diversions of the higher classes form another and the only +remaining head of inquiry into their expenses: I mean those diversions +which distinguish the country and the town life,--which are visible and +tangible to the statesman,--which have some public measure and standard. +And here, when, I look to the report of your committee, I, for the first +time, perceive a failure. It is clearly so. Whichever way I reckon the +four years of peace, the old tax on the sports of the field has +certainly proved deficient since the war. The same money, however, or +nearly the same, has been paid to government,--though the same number of +individuals have not contributed to the payment. An additional tax was +laid in 1791, and during the war has produced upwards of 61,000_l._, +which is about 4000_l._ more than the decrease of the old tax, in one +scheme of comparison, and about 4000_l._ less, in the other scheme. I +might remark, that the amount of the new tax, in the several years of +the war, by no means bears the proportion which it ought to the old. +There seems to be some great irregularity or other in the receipt. But I +do not think it worth while to examine into the argument. I am willing +to suppose that many, who, in the idleness of peace, made war upon +partridges, hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble arms against +the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries may do what they +please with that concession. They are welcome to make the most of it. I +am sure of a very handsome set-off in the other branch of expense,--the +amusements of a town life. + +There is much gayety and dissipation and profusion which must escape and +disappoint all the arithmetic of political economy. But the theatres are +a prominent feature. They are established through every part of the +kingdom, at a cost unknown till our days. There is hardly a provincial +capital which does not possess, or which does not aspire to possess, a +theatre-royal. Most of them engage for a short time, at a vast price, +every actor or actress of name in the metropolis: a distinction which in +the reign of my old friend Garrick was confined to very few. The +dresses, the scenes, the decorations of every kind, I am told, are in a +new style of splendor and magnificence: whether to the advantage of our +dramatic taste, upon the whole, I very much doubt. It is a show and a +spectacle, not a play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the +genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured +by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age:-- + + Migravit ab aure voluptas + Omnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana: + Quatuor aut plures aulaea premuntur in horas, + Dum fugiunt equitum turmae, peditumque catervae;-- + +I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and abominate +the sequel:-- + + Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis. + +I hope that no French fraternization, which the relations of peace and +amity with systematized regicide would assuredly sooner or later draw +after them, even if it should overturn our happy Constitution itself, +could so change the hearts of Englishmen as to make them delight in +representations and processions which have no other merit than that of +degrading and insulting the name of royalty. But good taste, manners, +morals, religion, all fly, wherever the principles of Jacobinism enter; +and we have no safety against them but in arms. + +The proprietors, whether in this they follow or lead what is called the +town, to furnish out these gaudy and pompous entertainments, must +collect so much more from the public. It was but just before the +breaking out of hostilities, that they levied for themselves the very +tax which, at the close of the American war, they represented to Lord +North as certain ruin to their affairs to demand for the state. The +example has since been imitated by the managers of our Italian Opera. +Once during the war, if not twice, (I would not willingly misstate +anything, but I am not very accurate on these subjects,) they have +raised the price of their subscription. Yet I have never heard that any +lasting dissatisfaction has been manifested, or that their houses have +been unusually and constantly thin. On the contrary, all the three +theatres have been repeatedly altered, and refitted, and enlarged, to +make them capacious of the crowds that nightly flock to them; and one of +those huge and lofty piles, which lifts its broad shoulders in gigantic +pride, almost emulous of the temples of God, has been reared from the +foundation at a charge of more than fourscore thousand pounds, and yet +remains a naked, rough, unsightly heap. + +I am afraid, my dear Sir, that I have tired you with these dull, though +important details. But we are upon a subject which, like some of a +higher nature, refuses ornament, and is contented with conveying +instruction. I know, too, the obstinacy of unbelief in those perverted +minds which have no delight but in contemplating the supposed distress +and predicting the immediate ruin of their country. These birds of evil +presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; +and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that +they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the +periods of our most abundant prosperity. Very early in my public life I +had occasion to make myself a little acquainted with their natural +history. My first political tract in the collection which a friend has +made of my publications is an answer to a very gloomy picture of the +state of the nation, which was thought to have been drawn by a statesman +of some eminence in his time. That was no more than the common spleen of +disappointed ambition: in the present day I fear that too many are +actuated by a more malignant and dangerous spirit. They hope, by +depressing our minds with a despair of our means and resources, to drive +us, trembling and unresisting, into the toils of our enemies, with whom, +from the beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in +strict concert and cooeperation. If, with the report of your Finance +Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can +still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended +fears among well-disposed, though weak men, there is no way of +counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must we +forget that they are unwearied agitators, bold assertors, dexterous +sophisters. Proof must be accumulated upon proof, to silence them. With +this view, I shall now direct your attention to some other striking and +unerring indications of our flourishing condition; and they will, in +general, be derived from other sources, but equally authentic: from +other reports and proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, all which +unite with wonderful force of consent in the same general result. +Hitherto we have seen the superfluity of our capital discovering itself +only in procuring superfluous accommodation and enjoyment, in our +houses, in our furniture, in our establishments, in our eating and +drinking, our clothing, and our public diversions: we shall now see it +more beneficially employed in improving our territory itself: we shall +see part of our present opulence, with provident care, put out to usury +for posterity. + +To what ultimate extent it may be wise or practicable to push inclosures +of common and waste lands may be a question of doubt, in some points of +view: but no person thinks them already carried to excess; and the +relative magnitude of the sums laid out upon them gives us a standard of +estimating the comparative situation of the landed interest. Your House, +this session, appointed a committee on waste lands, and they have made a +report by their chairman, an honorable baronet, for whom the minister +the other day (with very good intentions, I believe, but with little +real profit to the public) thought fit to erect a board of agriculture. +The account, as it stands there, appears sufficiently favorable. The +greatest number of inclosing bills passed in any one year of the last +peace does not equal the smallest annual number in the war, and those of +the last year exceed by more than one half the highest year of peace. +But what was my surprise, on looking into the late report of the Secret +Committee of the Lords, to find a list of these bills during the war, +differing in every year, and[48] larger on the whole by nearly one +third! I have checked this account by the statute-book, and find it to +be correct. What new brilliancy, then, does it throw over the prospect, +bright as it was before! The number during the last four years has more +than doubled that of the four years immediately preceding; it has +surpassed the five years of peace, beyond which the Lords' committees +have not gone; it has even surpassed (I have verified the fact) the +whole ten years of peace. I cannot stop here. I cannot advance a single +step in this inquiry without being obliged to cast my eyes back to the +period when I first knew the country. These bills, which had begun in +the reign of Queen Anne, had passed every year in greater or less +numbers from the year 1723; yet in all that space of time they had not +reached the amount of any two years during the present war; and though +soon after that time they rapidly increased, still at the accession of +his present Majesty they were far short of the number passed in the four +years of hostilities. + +In my first letter I mentioned the state of our inland navigation, +neglected as it had been from the reign of King William to the time of +my observation. It was not till the present reign that the Duke of +Bridgewater's canal first excited a spirit of speculation and adventure +in this way. This spirit showed itself, but necessarily made no great +progress, in the American war. When peace was restored, it began of +course to work with more sensible effect; yet in ten years from that +event the bills passed on that subject were not so many as from the year +1793 to the present session of Parliament. From what I can trace on the +statute-book, I am confident that all the capital expended in these +projects during the peace bore no degree of proportion (I doubt, on +very grave consideration, whether all that was ever so expended was +equal) to the money which has been raised for the same purposes since +the war.[49] I know that in the last four years of peace, when they rose +regularly and rapidly, the sums specified in the acts were not near one +third of the subsequent amount. In the last session of Parliament, the +Grand Junction Company, as it is called, having sunk half a million, (of +which I feel the good effects at my own door,) applied to your House for +permission to subscribe half as much more among themselves. This Grand +Junction is an inosculation of the Grand Trunk; and in the present +session, the latter company has obtained the authority of Parliament to +float two hundred acres of land, for the purpose of forming a reservoir, +thirty feet deep, two hundred yards wide at the head, and two miles in +length: a lake which may almost vie with that which once fed the now +obliterated canal of Languedoc. + +The present war is, above all others of which we have heard or read, a +war against landed property. That description of property is in its +nature the firm base of every stable government,--and has been so +considered by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the +time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all +others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so +regarded in the practical politics of antiquity, where they are brought +more directly homo to our understandings and bosoms in the history of +Borne, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes were +always thought more respectable than those of the city. And if in our +own history there is any one circumstance to which, under God, are to be +attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue, and sober +settlement of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that, while the +landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other +countries, has at all times been in close connection and union with the +other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously allowed +to lead and direct and moderate all the rest. I cannot, therefore, but +see with singular gratification, that, during a war which has been +eminently made for the destruction of the lauded proprietors, as well as +of priests and kings, as much has been done by public works for the +permanent benefit of their stake in this country as in all the rest of +the current century, which now touches to its close. Perhaps after this +it may not be necessary to refer to private observation; but I am +satisfied that in general the rents of lands have been considerably +increased: they are increased very considerably, indeed, if I may draw +any conclusion from my own little property of that kind. I am not +ignorant, however, where our public burdens are most galling. But all of +this class will consider who they are that are principally menaced,--how +little the men of their description in other countries, where this +revolutionary fury has but touched, have been found equal to their own +protection,--how tardy and unprovided and full of anguish is their +flight, chained down as they are by every tie to the soil,--how +helpless they are, above all other men, in exile, in poverty, in need, +in all the varieties of wretchedness; and then let them well weigh what +are the burdens to which they ought not to submit for their own +salvation. + +Many of the authorities which I have already adduced, or to which I have +referred, may convey a competent notion of some of our principal +manufactures. Their general state will be clear from that of our +external and internal commerce, through which they circulate, and of +which they are at once the cause and effect. But the communication of +the several parts of the kingdom with each other and with foreign +countries has always been regarded as one of the most certain tests to +evince the prosperous or adverse state of our trade in all its branches. +Recourse has usually been had to the revenue of the Post-Office with +this view. I shall include the product of the tax which was laid in the +last war, and which will make the evidence more conclusive, if it shall +afford the same inference: I allude to the Post-Horse duty, which shows +the personal intercourse within the kingdom, as the Post-Office shows +the intercourse by letters both within and without. The first of these +standards, then, exhibits an increase, according to my former schemes of +comparison, from an eleventh to a twentieth part of the whole duty.[50] +The Post-Office gives still less consolation to those who are miserable +in proportion as the country feels no misery. From the commencement of +the war to the month of April, 1796, the gross produce had increased by +nearly one sixth of the whole sum which the state now derives from that +fund. I find that the year ending 5th of April, 1793, gave 627,592_l._, +and the year ending at the same quarter in 1796, 750,637_l._, after a +fair deduction having been made for the alteration (which, you know, on +grounds of policy I never approved) in your privilege of franking. I +have seen no formal document subsequent to that period, but I have been +credibly informed there is very good ground to believe that the revenue +of the Post-Office[51] still continues to be regularly and largely upon +the rise. + +What is the true inference to be drawn from the annual number of +bankruptcies has been the occasion of much dispute. On one side it has +been confidently urged as a sure symptom of a decaying trade: on the +other side it has been insisted that it is a circumstance attendant upon +a thriving trade; for that the greater is the whole quantity of trade, +the greater of course must be the positive number of failures, while the +aggregate success is still in the same proportion. In truth, the +increase of the number may arise from either of those causes. But all +must agree in one conclusion,--that, if the number diminishes, and at +the same time every other sort of evidence tends to show an augmentation +of trade, there can be no better indication. We have already had very +ample means of gathering that the year 1796 was a very favorable year of +trade, and in that year the number of bankruptcies was at least one +fifth below the usual average. I take this from the declaration of the +Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords.[52] He professed to speak from +the records of Chancery; and he added another very striking fact,--that +on the property actually paid into his court (a very small part, indeed, +of the whole property of the kingdom) there had accrued in that year a +net surplus of eight hundred thousand pounds, which was so much new +capital. + +But the real situation of our trade, during the whole of this war, +deserves more minute investigation. I shall begin with that which, +though the least in consequence, makes perhaps the most impression on +our senses, because it meets our eyes in our daily walks: I mean our +retail trade. The exuberant display of wealth in our shops was the sight +which most amazed a learned foreigner of distinction who lately resided +among us: his expression, I remember, was, that "_they seemed to be +bursting with opulence into the streets_." The documents which throw +light on this subject are not many, but they all meet in the same point: +all concur in exhibiting an increase. The most material are the general +licenses[53] which the law requires to be taken out by all dealers in +excisable commodities. These seem to be subject to considerable +fluctuations. They have not been so low in any year of the war as in the +years 1788 and 1789, nor ever so high in peace as in the first year of +the war. I should next state the licenses to dealers in spirits and +wine; but the change in them which took place in 1789 would give an +unfair advantage to my argument. I shall therefore content myself with +remarking, that from the date of that change the spirit licenses kept +nearly the same level till the stoppage of the distilleries in 1795. If +they dropped a little, (and it was but little,) the wine licenses, +during the same time, more than countervailed that loss to the revenue; +and it is remarkable with regard to the latter, that in the year 1796, +which was the lowest in the excise duties on wine itself, as well as in +the quantity imported, more dealers in wine appear to have been licensed +than in any former year, excepting the first year of the war. This fact +may raise some doubt whether the consumption has been lessened so much +as, I believe, is commonly imagined. The only other retail-traders whom +I found so entered as to admit of being selected are tea-dealers and +sellers of gold and silver plate, both of whom seem to have multiplied +very much in proportion to their aggregate number.[54] I have kept apart +one set of licensed sellers, because I am aware that our antagonists may +be inclined to triumph a little, when I name auctioneers and auctions. +They may be disposed to consider it as a sort of trade which thrives by +the distress of others. But if they will look at it a little more +attentively, they will find their gloomy comfort vanish. The public +income from these licenses has risen with very great regularity through +a series of years which all must admit to have been years of prosperity. +It is remarkable, too, that in the year 1793, which was the great year +of bankruptcies, these duties on auctioneers and auctions[55] fell below +the mark of 1791; and in 1796, which year had one fifth less than the +accustomed average of bankruptcies, they mounted at once beyond all +former examples. In concluding this general head, will you permit me, my +dear Sir, to bring to your notice an humble, but industrious and +laborious set of chapmen, against whom the vengeance of your House has +sometimes been levelled, with what policy I need not stay to inquire, as +they have escaped without much injury? The hawkers and peddlers,[56] I +am assured, are still doing well, though, from some new arrangements +respecting them made in 1789, it would be difficult to trace their +proceedings in any satisfactory manner. + +When such is the vigor of our traffic in its minutest ramifications, we +may be persuaded that the root and the trunk are sound. When we see the +life-blood of the state circulate so freely through the capillary +vessels of the System, we scarcely need inquire if the heart performs +its functions aright. But let us approach it; let us lay it bare, and +watch the systole and diastole, as it now receives and now pours forth +the vital stream through all the members. The port of London has always +supplied the main evidence of the state of our commerce. I know, that, +amidst all the difficulties and embarrassments of the year 1793, from +causes unconnected with and prior to the war, the tonnage of ships in +the Thames actually rose. But I shall not go through a detail of +official papers on this point. There is evidence, which has appeared +this very session before your House, infinitely more forcible and +impressive to my apprehension than all the journals and ledgers of all +the Inspectors-General from the days of Davenant. It is such as cannot +carry with it any sort of fallacy. It comes, not from one set, but from +many opposite sets of witnesses, who all agree in nothing else: +witnesses of the gravest and most unexceptionable character, and who +confirm what they say, in the surest manner, by their conduct. Two +different bills have been brought in for improving the port of London. I +have it from very good intelligence, that, when the project was first +suggested from necessity, there were no less than eight different plans, +supported by eight different bodies of subscribers. The cost of the +least was estimated at two hundred thousand pounds, and of the most +extensive at twelve hundred thousand. The two between which the contest +now lies substantially agree (as all the others must have done) in the +motives and reasons of the preamble; but I shall confine myself to that +bill which is proposed on the part of the mayor, aldermen, and common +council, because I regard them as the best authority, and their language +in itself is fuller and more precise. I certainly see them complain of +the "great delays, accidents, damages, losses, and extraordinary +expenses, which are almost continually sustained, to the hindrance and +discouragement of commerce, and the great injury of the public revenue." +But what are the causes to which they attribute their complaints? The +first is, "THAT, FROM THE VERY GREAT AND PROGRESSIVE INCREASE OF THE +NUMBER AND SIZE OF SHIPS AND OTHER VESSELS TRADING TO THE PORT OF +LONDON, the river Thames, in and near the said port, is in general so +much crowded with shipping, lighters, and other craft, that the +navigation of a considerable part of the river is thereby rendered +tedious and dangerous; and there is great want of room in the said port +for the safe and convenient mooring of vessels, and constant access to +them." The second is of the same nature. It is the want of regulations +and arrangements, never before found necessary, for expedition and +facility. The third is of another kind, but to the same effect: That the +legal quays are too confined, and there is not sufficient accommodation +for the landing and shipping of cargoes. And the fourth and last is +still different: they describe the avenues to the legal quays (which, +little more than a century since, the great fire of London opened and +dilated beyond the measure of our then circumstances) to be now +"incommodious, and much too narrow for the great concourse of carts and +other carriages usually passing and repassing therein." Thus our trade +has grown too big for the ancient limits of Art and Nature. Our streets, +our lanes, our shores, the river itself, which has so long been our +pride, are impeded and obstructed and choked up by our riches. They are, +like our shops, "bursting with opulence." To these misfortunes, to these +distresses and grievances alone, we are told, it is to be imputed that +still more of our capital has not been pushed into the channel of our +commerce, to roll back in its reflux still more abundant capital, and +fructify the national treasury in its course. Indeed, my dear Sir, when +I have before my eyes this consentient testimony of the corporation of +the city of London, the West India merchants, and all the other +merchants who promoted the other plans, struggling and contending which +of them shall be permitted to lay out their money in consonance with +their testimony, I cannot turn aside to examine what one or two violent +petitions, tumultuously voted by real or pretended liverymen of London, +may have said of the utter destruction and annihilation of trade. + +This opens a subject on which every true lover of his country, and, at +this crisis, every friend to the liberties of Europe, and of social +order in every country, must dwell and expatiate with delight. I mean to +wind up all my proofs of our astonishing and almost incredible +prosperity with the valuable information given to the Secret Committee +of the Lords by the Inspector-General. And here I am happy that I can +administer an antidote to all despondence from the same dispensary from +which the first dose of poison was supposed to have come. The report of +that committee is generally believed to have derived much benefit from +the labors of the same noble lord who was said, as the author of the +pamphlet of 1795, to have led the way in teaching us to place all our +hope on that very experiment which he afterwards declared in his place +to have been from the beginning utterly without hope. We have now his +authority to say, that, as far as our resources were concerned, the +experiment was equally without necessity. + +"It appears," as the committee has very justly and satisfactorily +observed, "by the accounts of the value of the imports and exports for +the last twenty years, produced by Mr. Irving, Inspector-General of +Imports and Exports, that the demands for cash to be sent abroad" +(which, by the way, including the loan to the Emperor, was nearly one +third less sent to the Continent of Europe than in the Seven Years' War) +... "was greatly compensated by a very large balance of commerce in +favor of this kingdom,--greater than was ever known in any preceding +period. The value of the exports of the last year amounted, according to +the valuation on which the accounts of the Inspector-General are +founded, to 30,424,184_l._, which is more than double what it was in any +year of the American war, and one third more than it was on an average +during the last peace, previous to the year 1792; and though the value +of the imports to this country has during the same period greatly +increased, the excess of the value of the exports above that of the +imports, which constitutes the balance of trade, has augmented even in a +greater proportion." These observations might perhaps be branched out +into other points of view, but I shall leave them to your own active and +ingenious mind. There is another and still more important light in +which, the Inspector-General's information may be seen,--and that is, as +affording a comparison of some circumstances in this war with the +commercial history of all our other wars in the present century. + +In all former hostilities, our exports gradually declined in value, and +then (with one single exception) ascended again, till they reached and +passed the level of the preceding peace. But this was a work of time, +sometimes more, sometimes less slow. In Queen Anne's war, which began in +1702, it was an interval of ten years before this was effected. Nine +years only were necessary, in the war of 1739, for the same operation. +The Seven Years' War saw the period much shortened: hostilities began in +1755; and in 1758, the fourth year of the war, the exports mounted above +the peace-mark. There was, however, a distinguishing feature of that +war,--that our tonnage, to the very last moment, was in a state of great +depression, while our commerce was chiefly carried on by foreign +vessels. The American war was darkened with singular and peculiar +adversity. Our exports never came near to their peaceful elevation, and +our tonnage continued, with very little fluctuation, to subside lower +and lower.[57] On the other hand, the present war, with regard to our +commerce, has the white mark of as singular felicity. If, from internal +causes, as well as the consequence of hostilities, the tide ebbed in +1793, it rushed back again with a bore in the following year, and from +that time has continued to swell and run every successive year higher +and higher into all our ports. The value of our exports last year above +the year 1792 (the mere increase of our commerce during the war) is +equal to the average value of all the exports during the wars of William +and Anne. + +It has been already pointed out, that our imports have not kept pace +with our exports: of course, on the face of the account, the balance of +trade, both positively and comparatively considered, must have been much +more than ever in our favor. In that early little tract of mine, to +which I have already more than once referred, I made many observations +on the usual method of computing that balance, as well as the usual +objection to it, that the entries at the Custom-House were not always +true. As you probably remember them, I shall not repeat them here. On +the one hand, I am not surprised that the same trite objection is +perpetually renewed by the detractors of our national affluence; and on +the other hand, I am gratified in perceiving that the balance of trade +seems to be now computed in a manner much clearer than it used to be +from those errors which I formerly noticed. The Inspector-General +appears to have made his estimate with every possible guard and caution. +His opinion is entitled to the greatest respect. It was in substance, (I +shall again use the words of the Report, as much better than my own,) +"that the true balance of our trade amounted, on a medium of the four +years preceding January, 1796, to upwards of 6,500,00_l._ per annum, +exclusive of the profits arising from our East and West India trade, +which he estimates at upwards of 4,000,000_l._ per annum, exclusive of +the profits derived from our fisheries." So that, including the +fisheries, and making a moderate allowance for the exceedings, which Mr. +Irving himself supposes, beyond his calculation, without reckoning what +the public creditors themselves pay to themselves, and without taking +one shilling from the stock of the landed interest, our colonies, our +Oriental possessions, our skill and industry, our commerce and +navigation, at the commencement of this year, were pouring a new annual +capital into the kingdom, hardly half a million short of the whole +interest of that tremendous debt from which we are taught to shrink in +dismay, as from an overwhelming and intolerable oppression. + +If, then, the real state of this nation is such as I have described, +(and I am only apprehensive that you may think I have taken too much +pains to exclude all doubt on this question,)--if no class is lessened +in its numbers, or in its stock, or in its conveniences, or even its +luxuries,--if they build as many habitations, and as elegant and as +commodious as ever, and furnish them with every chargeable decoration +and every prodigality of ingenious invention that can be thought of by +those who even incumber their necessities with superfluous +accommodation,--if they are as numerously attended,--if their equipages +are as splendid,--if they regale at table with as much or more variety +of plenty than ever,--if they are clad in as expensive and changeful a +diversity, according to their tastes and modes,--if they are not +deterred from the pleasures of the field by the charges which government +has wisely turned from the culture to the sports of the field,--if the +theatres are as rich and as well filled, and greater and at a higher +price than ever,--and (what is more important than all) if it is plain, +from the treasures which are spread over the soil or confided to the +winds and the seas, that there are as many who are indulgent to their +propensities of parsimony as others to their voluptuous desires, and +that the pecuniary capital grows instead of diminishing,--on what ground +are we authorized to say that a nation gambolling in an ocean of +superfluity is undone by want? With what face can we pretend that they +who have not denied any one gratification to any one appetite have a +right to plead poverty in order to famish their virtues and to put their +duties on short allowance? that they are to take the law from an +imperious enemy, and can contribute no longer to the honor of their +king, to the support of the independence of their country, to the +salvation of that Europe which, if it falls, must crush them with its +gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under +their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of +Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of +their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and +creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition +and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have +never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their +annual accumulation than all the well-husbanded capital that enabled +their ancestors, by long and doubtful and obstinate conflicts, to +defend and liberate and vindicate the civilized world? But I do not +accuse the people of England. As to the great majority of the nation, +they have done whatever, in their several ranks and conditions and +descriptions, was required of them by their relative situations in +society: and from those the great mass of mankind cannot depart, without +the subversion of all public order. They look up to that government +which they obey that they may be protected. They ask to be led and +directed by those rulers whom Providence and the laws of their country +have set over them, and under their guidance to walk in the ways of +safety and honor. They have again delegated the greatest trust which +they have to bestow to those faithful representatives who made their +true voice heard against the disturbers and destroyers of Europe. They +suffered, with unapproving acquiescence, solicitations, which they had +in no shape desired, to an unjust and usurping power, whom they had +never provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not dread. When the +exigencies of the public service could only be met by their voluntary +zeal, they started forth with an ardor which outstripped the wishes of +those who had injured them by doubting whether it might not be necessary +to have recourse to compulsion. They have in all things reposed an +enduring, but not an unreflecting confidence. That confidence demands a +full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and +undivided. The people stands acquitted, if the war is not carried on in +a manner suited to its objects. If the public honor is tarnished, if the +public safety suffers any detriment, the ministers, not the people, are +to answer it, and they alone. Its armies, its navies, are given to them +without stint or restriction. Its treasures are poured out at their +feet. Its constancy is ready to second all their efforts. They are not +to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure. The responsibility +which they are to dread is lest they should show themselves unequal to +the expectation of a brave people. The more doubtful may be the +constitutional and economical questions upon which they have received so +marked a support, the more loudly they are called upon to support this +great war, for the success of which their country is willing to +supersede considerations of no slight importance. Where I speak of +responsibility, I do not mean to exclude that species of it which the +legal powers of the country have a right finally to exact from those who +abuse a public trust: but high as this is, there is a responsibility +which attaches on them from which the whole legitimate power of the +kingdom cannot absolve them; there is a responsibility to conscience and +to glory, a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity +which men of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame,--a +responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but kings and +parliaments, but even nations themselves, must one day answer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] The Archduke Charles of Austria. + +[38] Dec 27, 1790. + +[39] Observations on a Late State of the Nation. + +[40] This and the following tables on the same construction are compiled +from the Reports of the Finance Committee in 1791 and 1797, with the +addition of the separate paper laid before the House of Commons, and +ordered to be printed, on the 7th of February, 1792. + + BRICKS AND TILES. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 94,521 | 1793 122,975 +1788 96,278 | 1794 106,811 +1789 91,773 | 1795 83,804 +1790 104,409 | 1796 94,668 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L386,981 | L408,258 L21,277. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L115,382 4 Years to 1791 L407,842 L416. + + + PLATE. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 22,707 | 1793 25,920 +1788 23,295 | 1794 23,637 +1789 22,453 | 1795 25,607 +1790 18,433 | 1796 28,513 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L86,888 | L103,677 L16,789. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L31,528 4 Years to 1791 L95,704 L7,973. + + GLASS PLATES. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 ---- | 1793 5,655 +1788 5,496 | 1794 5,456 +1789 4,686 | 1795 5,839 +1790 6,008 | 1796 8,871 + ------- | ------- + L16,190 | L25,821 + Increase to 1791 +1791 L7,880 4 Years to 1791 L24,070 L1,751. + + + +[41] + + GROCERIES. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 167,389 | 1793 124,655 +1788 133,191 | 1794 195,840 +1789 142,871 | 1795 208,242 +1790 156,311 | 1796 159,826 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L599,762 | L688,563 L88,081. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L236,727 4 Years to 1791 L669,100 L19,463. + + TEA. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 424,144 | 1793 477,644 +1788 426,660 | 1794 467,132 +1789 539,575 | 1795 507,518 +1790 417,736 | 1796 526,307 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L1,808,115 | L1,978,601 L170,486. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L448,709 4 Years to 1791 L1,832,680 L145,921. + +The additional duty imposed in 1795 produced in that year 137,656_l._, +and in 1796, 200,107_l._ + + COFFEE AND COCOA-NUTS. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 17,006 | 1793 36,846 +1788 30,217 | 1794 49,177 +1789 34,784 | 1795 27,913 +1790 38,647 | 1796 19,711 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L120,654 | L133,647 L12,993. + Decrease to 1791 +1791 L41,194 4 Years to 1791 L144,842 L11,195. + +The additional duty of 1795 in that year gave 16,775_l._, and in 1796, +15,319_l._ + +[42] + + SUGAR. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 1,065,109 | 1793 1,473,139 +1788 1,184,458 | 1794 1,392,965 +1789 1,905,106 | 1795 1,338,246 +1790 1,069,108 | 1796 1,474,899 + --------- | --------- Increase to 1790 + L4,413,781 | L5,679,249 L1,265,468. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L1,044,781 4 Years to 1791 L4,392,725 L1,286,524. + +There was a new duty on sugar in 1791, which produced in 1794 +234,292_l._, in 1795, 206,932_l._, and in 1796, 245,024_l._ It is not +clear from the report of the committee, whether the additional duty is +included in the account given above. + +[43] + + BEER, &c. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 1,761,429 | 1793 2,043,902 +1788 1,705,199 | 1794 2,082,053 +1789 1,742,514 | 1795 1,931,101 +1790 1,858,043 | 1796 2,294,377 + --------- | --------- Increase to 1790 + L7,067,185 | L8,351,433 L1,284,248. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L1,880,478 4 Years to 1791 L7,186,234 L1,165,199. + + WINE. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 219,934 | 1793 222,887 +1788 215,578 | 1794 283,644 +1789 252,649 | 1795 317,072 +1790 308,624 | 1796 187,818 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L996,785 | L1,011,421 L14,636. + Decrease to 1791 +1791 L336,549 4 Years to 1791 L1,113,400 L101,979. + + QUANTITY IMPORTED. +Years of Peace. Tuns. | Years of War. Tuns. +1787 22,978 | 1793 22,788 +1786 26,442 | 1794 27,868 +1789 27,414 | 1795 32,033 +1790 29,182 | 1796 19,079 + +The additional duty of 1795 produced that year 736,871_l._, and in 1796, +432,689_l._ A second additional duty, which produced 98,165_l._ was laid +in 1796. + + SWEETS. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 11,167 | 1793 11,016 +1788 7,375 | 1794 10,612 +1789 7,202 | 1795 13,321 +1790 4,953 | 1796 15,050 + ------ | ------ Increase to 1790 + L30,697 | L49,999 L19,302. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L13,282 4 Years to 1791 L32,812 L17,187. + +In 1795 an additional duty was laid on this article, which produced that +year 5,679_l._, and in 1796, 9,443_l._; and in 1796 a second, to +commence on the 20th of June: its produce in that year was 2,325_l._ + +[44] + + MUSLINS AND CALICOES. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 129,297 | 1793 173,050 +1788 138,660 | 1794 104,902 +1789 126,267 | 1795 103,857 +1790 128,865 | 1796 272,544 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L522,589 | L654,353 L131,764. + +This table begins with 1788. The net produce of the preceding year is +not in the report whence the table is taken. + +[45] + + PRINTED GOODS. +Years of Peace. L Years of War. L +1787 142,000 | 1793 191,566 +1788 154,486 | 1794 190,554 +1789 153,202 | 1795 197,416 +1790 157,156 | 1796 230,530 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L616,844 | L810,066 L193,222. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L191,489 4 Years to 1791 L666,333 L143,733. + + +These duties for 1787 are blended with several others. The proportion of +printed goods to the other articles for four years was found to be one +fourth. That proportion is here taken. + +[46] + + SILK. +Years of Peace. L Years of War. L +1787 166,912 | 1793 209,915 +1788 123,998 | 1794 221,306 +1789 157,730 | 1795 210,725 +1790 212,522 | 1796 221,007 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L661,162 | L862,953 L201,791. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L279,128 4 Years to 1791 L773,378 L89,575. + + + + +[47] + + FURS. +Years of Peace. L Years of War. L +1787 3,464 | 1793 2,829 +1788 2,958 | 1794 3,353 +1789 1,151 | 1795 3,666 +1790 3,328 | 1796 6,138 + ------ | ------ Increase to 1790 + L10,901 | L15,986 L5,085. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L5,731 4 Years to 1791 L13,168 L2,815. + +The skins here selected from the Custom-House accounts are, _Black Bear, +Ordinary Fox, Marten, Mink, Musquash, Otter, Raccoon_, and _Wolf_. + +[48] Report of the Lords' Committee of Secrecy, ordered to be printed +28th April, 1797, Appendix 44. + + INCLOSURE BILLS. +Years of Peace | Years of War. +1789 33 | 1793 60 +1790 25 | 1794 74 +1791 40 | 1795 77 +1792 40 | 1796 72 + --- | --- + 138 | 283 + + + +[49] + + NAVIGATION AND CANAL BILLS. +Years of Peace. | Years of War. +1789 3 | 1793 28 +1790 8 | 1794 18 +1791 10 | 1795 11 +1792 9 | 1796 12 + -- | -- + 80 | 69 + +Money raised L2,377,200 L 7,115,100 + + + +[50] + + POST-HORSE DUTY. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1785 169,410 | 1793 191,488 +1788 204,659 | 1794 202,884 +1789 170,554 | 1795 196,691 +1790 181,155 | 1796 204,061 + -------- | -------- Increase to 1790 + L725,778 | L795,124 L69,346. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L198,634 4 Years to 1791 L755,002 L40,122. + + +[51] The above account is taken from a paper which was ordered by the +House of Commons to be printed 8th December, 1796. From the gross +produce of the year ending 5th April, 1796, there has been deducted in +that statement the sum of 36,666_l._, in consequence of the regulation +on franking, which took place on the 5th May, 1795, and was computed at +40,000_l._ per ann. To show an equal number of years, both of peace and +war, the accounts of two preceding years are given in the following +table, from a report made since Mr. Burke's death by a committee of the +House of Commons appointed to consider the claims of Mr. Palmer, the +late Comptroller-General; and for still greater satisfaction, the number +of letters, inwards and outwards, have been added, except for the year +1790-1791. The letter-book for that year is not to be found. + + + + POST-OFFICE. + | Number of Letters. + Gross Revenue |-------------------------------- + L | Inwards. | Outwards. +April, 1790-1791 575,079 | -------- | --------- + 1791-1792 585,432 | 6,391,149 | 5,081,344 + 1792-1793 627,592 | 6,584,867 | 5,041,137 + 1793-1794 691,268 | 7,094,777 | 6,537,234 + 1794-1795 705,319 | 7,071,029 | 7,473,626 + 1795-1796 750,637 | 7,641,077 | 8,597,167 + +From the last-mentioned report it appears that the accounts have not +been completely and authentically made up for the years ending 5th +April, 1796 and 1797; but on the Receiver-General's books there is an +increase of the latter year over the former, equal to something more +than 5 per cent. + +[52] In a debate, 30th December, 1796, on the return of Lord +Malmesbury.--See Woodfall's Parliamentary Debates, Vol. XIII. p. 591. + +[53] + + GENERAL LICENSES. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 44,030 | 1793 45,568 +1788 40,882 | 1794 42,129 +1789 39,917 | 1795 43,350 +1790 41,970 | 1796 41,190 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L166,799 | L170,237 L3,438. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L44,240 4 Years to 1791 L167,009 L3,228. + + +[54] + + DEALERS IN TEA. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 10,934 | 1793 13,939 +1788 11,949 | 1794 14,315 +1789 12,501 | 1795 13,956 +1790 13,126 | 1796 14,830 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L48,510 | L57,040 L8,530. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L13,921 4 Years to 1791 L51,497 L5,543. + + + SELLERS OF PLATE. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 6,593 | 1793 8,178 +1788 7,953 | 1794 8,296 +1789 7,348 | 1795 8,128 +1790 7,988 | 1796 8,835 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L29,832 | L33,437 L3,555. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L8,327 4 Years to 1791 L31,616 L1,821. + + + + +[55] + + AUCTIONS AND AUCTIONEERS. +Years of Peace. L | Years of War. L +1787 48,964 | 1793 70,004 +1788 53,993 | 1794 82,659 +1789 52,024 | 1795 86,890 +1790 53,156 | 1796 109,594 + ------- | ------- Increase to 1790 + L208,137 | L349,147 L141,010. + Increase to 1791 +1791 L70,973 4 Years to 1791 L230,146 L119,001. + + + + +[56] Since Mr. Burke's death a Fourth Report of the Committee of Finance +has made its appearance. An account is there given from the Stamp-Office +of the gross produce of duties on Hawkers and Peddlers for four years of +peace and four of war. It is therefore added in the manner of the other +tables. + + HAWKERS AND PEDDLERS. +Years of Peace. L |Years of War. L +1789 6,132 | 1793 6,042 +1790 6,708 | 1794 6,104 +1791 6,482 | 1795 6,795 +1792 6,008 | 1796 7,882 + ------- | ------- + L25,330 | L26,823 + +Increase in 4 Years of War L1,493 + + +[57] This account is extracted from different parts of Mr. Chalmers's +estimate. It is but just to mention, that in Mr. Chalmers's estimate the +sums are uniformly lower than those of the same year in Mr Irving's +account. + + +END OF VOL. V. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of the Right Honourable +Edmund Burke, Vol. V. 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